Saving the Saviors
by Doc0517
Summary: For fans of Person of Interest, I couldn't let it end that way on the show. So, my version is done now. Lots of twists and turns. Adventure, courage, loyalty, heartache, redemption. It's a long story. Get ready to go places you aren't expecting. Put the cat out; put the kettle on. Sit back in a comfortable chair. Enjoy Saving the Saviors.
1. Intro, Table of Contents, Works Cited

**Introduction**

Author's preface:

A new beginning is on the horizon. Much has happened, but there is much more to tell. Read the newly added Epilogue for a glimpse into the next part of our Team's journey.

March 17, 2019

Author's original preface:

Saving the Saviors is a story about the characters we love from Person of Interest continuing on. The original ending of the show didn't happen that way, in this story. It was re-imagined, and so there is a new path forward for them. Along the way, some of the familiar characters from past shows are brought back in new roles. A brand new character is also introduced, who has special skills to take two of the main characters on a journey that changes the arc of their stories, and addresses the trauma that pushes them ever closer to sacrificing themselves. We also get much closer to each of our beloved characters. We see a little more about who they are. This story is about saving the saviors...

In deep love and appreciation for the ground-breaking work of the original show, and for all of those who made it so unique. Let's keep going.

September 1, 2017

 **Table of contents**

Part 1

Chap 1 ... He's Pretty Beaten Up. Who Is He?

Chap 2 ... South Sudan Could Do That To People

Chap 3 ... With Your Permission

Chap 4 ... The River and the Old Canoe

Chap 5 ... He Was Allowing It

Chap 6 ... Second Wind

Chap 7 ... Hands On

Chap 8 ... Lone Canoe

Part 2

Chap 9 ... Claypool - Father of Samaritan

Chap 10 ...Trust

Chap 11 ... I Can't Be - Like This

Chap 12 ... Air Gap, Encryption or Glass Wall?

Chap 13 ... Back Home

Chap 14 ... Little Use For People

Chap 15 ... Click

Chap 16 ... Wooden Man

Chap 17 ... Can't Forget and Don't Want To Remember

Part 3

Chap 18 ... Grace, What Is This Place?

Chap 19 ... Cumulative Cuts

Chap 20 ... I Can't Find You, Harold

Chap 21 ... It Can Fall Apart Pretty Fast

Chap 22 ... Awareness, Without Sensation

Chap 23 ... Not Responding

Chap 24 ... Rude/Awakening

Chap 25 ... Mongolian Outreach

Chap 26 ... Abyss

Chap 27 ... Left Behind

Part 4

Chap 28 ... If Guns Went Off In Here

Chap 29 ... Root's Roadtrip

Chap 30 ... She Could See He Was In Trouble

Chap 31 ... Words Were Not Required

Chap 32 ... Are You In Pain, Harold?

Chap 33 ... The Book of Five Rings

Part 5

Chap 34 ... Birds, Repeat POI, Singing Bowls, Book of Earth

Chap 35 ... I'm Waiting, Book Of Water, Forgetting To Paint, White Tea

Part 6

Chap 36 ... Hard Rain; Harold, We Need To Talk; Eyes On; Escalator; _Pour Aluel_ ; This May Get A Little Messy

Chap 37 ... Book of Fire; Wasn't Empty; Darkness Advanced; Like Long Ago; The Same One

Part 7

Chap 38 ... Deep Woods; Full Moon; Was This What That Was?

Chap 39 ... Everything I Know; Long Gone; That Went Well; Favorite White Tea

Part 8

Chap 40 ... It Matters To Me How This Ends

Epilogue

* * *

 **Works Cited**

* * *

If you wish to know more about the music, the _Book of Five Rings_ , and the Lummi story cited in this story, for your own journey, please enjoy:

Chapter 5: He was allowing it: Reese awakens from his "dream", sitting in Jules' kitchen. In the background when he awakens, is this music, which is an example of Alpha brainwave entrainment (try listening to track "Breathing in the Deep" as you read short Chapter 4 and then enter Chapter 5, to get the feeling Reese is having):

Walder, Russel. _Bruce Lipton's Music for a Shift in Consciouness_ , Sounds True, 2011

Chapter 16: Wooden Man: Reese on the table for the first time, with this music playing. See how it takes you to a healing place, like Jules did with Reese:

Evenson, Dean. _Healing Suite_ , with Tom Barabas and Natalie Twigg, Soundings of the Planet, 2009

Chapter 16: Wooden man: Jules plays this to help Reese stay in deep sleep, to help him recover. It uses Delta brainwave entrainment, for sleep.

Thompson, Jeffrey. _Peaceful Music for Sleep_ , The Relaxation Company, 2004

Chapter 17: Can't forget and don't want to remember: After treating Reese, Jules is sitting in her living room, reminiscing about France and plays this French duet:

Garou. "Sous le vent." _Seul_ , with Céline Dion, Columbia, 2000

Chapter 31: words were not required: Jules brings Harold to her home to recover after his torture at the hands of Greer. As she begins to create a safe space for him, she plays this from Canadian-born guitarist:

Cook, Jesse. "Broken Moon." _The Blue Guitar Sessions_ , Coach House Music, 2012

Chapter 32: Are you in pain, Harold?: As Harold accesses his suppressed memories, this music deepens the emotional reach:

Wild, Chuck. "Into The Silence Of My Being." _Liquid Mind VII Reflection_ , Real Music, 2004

Chapter 33: Book of Five Rings: Reese receives this, to help him re-connect with his authentic self and the Warrior's Way:

Kaufman, Stephen. _The Martial Artist's Book of Five Rings_ , Tuttle Publishing, 1994

Chapter 34: In the Singing Bowls section of this chapter: After Harold accesses suppressed memories and wakes in terror, he agrees to allow Jules to help him and this music accompanies the crystal singing bowls:

Kater, Peter. _Compassion,_ Earth Sea Records, 1998

Chapter 38: In Deep Woods: Reese returns to Jules, struggling to understand the meaning of something from his past. Try track 6 at the beginning of the chapter, as Jules readies herself. She plays this music during her session, which transports him back to his childhood in the Mountains of Colorado. Try listening to tracks 1, 4 and 5 to feel what they are feeling. Beautiful:

May, Daniel. _Solitudes Calm the Mind,_ Somerset Entertainment Ltd., 2006

Chapter 38: In Was This What That Was: Reese listens to Katie read this story of Tani, a Lummi girl guided by the spirit of her grandmother, to find the wisdom of her People inside herself. This is the story of what sustains us.

Egawa, Keith. _Tani's Search for the Heart_ , CreateSpace, March, 2013


	2. Part 1

**CHAPTER 1 - HE'S PRETTY BEATEN UP. WHO IS HE?**

* * *

 **Manhattan, June, 2016**

Reese could hear first, before he could see anything, but it wasn't clear what it was-a high-pitched whine, loud and piercing, in his ears. He tried to think back to when that had happened before. Slowly, too slowly, it came to him as he tried to raise his head to see where he was. Something had gone off, had exploded nearby, and his ears were stunned from it, whining from the blast pressure. And it must be debris dropping down on him from overhead. The heavy cloud of choking dust made him cough. Reese tried to stifle the coughs-each one made his head hurt even more, each one like another explosion going off inside his head.

Reese was down on his side, covered in ceiling tiles, tangles of wiring, sheetrock and metal panels from the restaurant facade where he was standing when the blast went off. He had a sense that it had gone off behind him, inside the restaurant, and that the whole front had blown out, separating at the panels, pushing him, tumbling him, like a snowdrift in front of a plow blade.

He could already feel something wet and warm mixing with the dust on his head. He knew he was hurt. When he tried to move a little bit-it took his breath away-searing pain in his left shoulder. And now that he had tried to move it, it was stuck there in the wrong place, spasming in wave after wave of sharp, ripping pain. He tried to reach it with his other hand to put it back or at least stabilize the shoulder, but there was so much tangled debris over him that he couldn't reach.

And now his back was lighting up in pain, sharp stabs cross-ways over the lower ribs with each breath. All he could do was to lie there as quietly as he could, so nothing else moved the wrong way. In the blackness, he could hear himself moaning with each hard spasm. The sound kept him conscious, let him focus on something. He could work with the pain.

His earpiece had been thrown somewhere. Reese couldn't hear Harold's voice calling to him from across town. "John? What was that sound?" Harold asked, alarmed by the noise the earpiece had transmitted before everything stopped. There was only silence now.

Harold kept trying to call out to him-no answer. He tapped some commands at his computer to see if he could raise a signal from Reese that way, but nothing. Harold called Shaw next, and he could hear a racing car engine in the background, with screeching tire noises. She was in pursuit, but Harold didn't want to know more. Reese was the priority.

"Miss Shaw?"

"Bad time, Finch. I'll have to get back to you."

Then there was an incoming call from Detective Fusco. He had just heard the report from COM about an explosion downtown at a mall, inside a restaurant. Fusco remembered that Reese used that location for meetings with a particular informant. He thought he had overheard Reese saying he was going there today. Details from the scene were sketchy. There was nothing in yet about casualties.

"Hey, Finch, isn't that where Tall-Dark-and-Dangerous was going to meet his CI?" Fusco winced as soon as he said it – it had just popped out before he could stop himself. Maybe it was not the right time for cop-humor with Glasses. There was a long, chilly silence before Harold answered.

"All I know, Detective, is that Mr. Reese went to meet with his informant, and there was a loud noise that could have been an explosion. I can't reach him. I need you to go there now and see if you can locate him. Miss Shaw will meet you there and I'll be right along, as well. Keep me informed, Detective."

Harold stood up and limped to the coat rack for his case and the leash for Bear. As soon as Bear heard the sound of the leash, he was up, ears forward, waiting for Harold's command. Harold snapped the metal clip onto his collar and gave the command, in Dutch, to "heel" on his right side," _Rechts_ ", away from the leg that swung awkwardly out to the left when he walked. Bear kept pace on his right and they made their way as quickly as Harold could limp to the car.

Outside the wrecked restaurant it was eerily quiet at the moment. There was bright sunshine, and a soft breeze blowing through the trees growing in the cutouts on the sidewalk. But down below, on street level, there was the start of a well-rehearsed response.

Sirens were wailing off in the distance. People on the streets were running, most away, but some toward the scene. Smoke was coming through the holes in the restaurant where the windows had been. There were people down on the sidewalk, thrown off their feet, bloodied, too stunned to cry out yet, aware that more devastation could be on its way.

Inside, the restaurant was ruined, black with soot and dust, tangled in a junk pile of shattered tables and chairs, exposed metal, sheet rock, picture frames, and wiring. The lights were gone. Deep inside, at the mall end of the restaurant, the worst of the damage was visible. The force of the blast had splintered the tables, blown the front wall open, and ripped the decorative tin ceiling to shreds up as high as the roof. A huge saltwater fish tank had ruptured and sat blackened and emptied of life. A highchair, nearly intact, lay on its side; and next to it, what was left of a stuffed animal, singed, shredded, and now unrecognizable.

Looking through the blast hole into the mall hallway, the devastation continued. A swath of glass and brick shards, twisted metal, and other shrapnel from inside the restaurant had funneled out in a cone-shape through the opening, peppering everything nearby. A pipe in the ceiling overhead had punctured and was raining water down onto the hallway floor.

Across the way, in front of the restaurant, the pile was deepest. Long metal panels from the facade poked up here and there. They had borne the brunt of the blast shrapnel and were studded with bits of rough, sharp, deadly fragments on their undersides.

Further along, there was a pile that had been plowed forward from the front of the restaurant by the metal panels sweeping everything ahead of them, nearly to the far wall. More debris from the opened ceiling kept sifting down, covering the pile in a uniform gray-white layer of dust. Reese's head was rapidly disappearing under the layer, camouflaged by the dust to look like the rest of the pile. He didn't move. He didn't hear the sirens or the voices of rescuers breaking through emergency exit doors on the street side of the restaurant. His eyes were slowly moving behind closed eyelids. They were watching a scene in a memory from long ago that was just now coming into his mind.

 **Colorado, August, 1990**

The sun was hot today, and young Reese was bobbing up and down in the river, cooling off after hiking in from the road. There were plenty of other spots along the river that were easier to reach, and some parts ran right next to the road itself, but this spot was his favorite.

The water was always moving at just the right speed. It kept the water fresh and deep, swinging down from the rocky part above, to make this wider, deeper pool, before splitting further down around a giant boulder sticking up out of the earth, then reforming again into a single stream beyond the rock.

This part of the river was too much trouble for people to bother with dragging their canoes or rafts out at the rocky shallows above the pool, to portage around it, down below the giant rock, where they could put in again and carry on. So there was never anyone here when he came. He had it all to himself. What else could a 12-year-old boy need on a hot summer day?

He pulled himself up out of the river and onto a flat heavy rock that lay half-out at the edge of the deeper part, where he liked to sit with his feet in the water. After a little while, if he sat really still, minnows would often find his toes, their gray-green bodies swimming against the gentle current, moving closer and closer, until he could feel the tickle of their soft mouth-parts touching against his skin.

 **Manhattan, June,2016**

Shaw checked in with Harold while he was driving across town, and he gave her the news. She had given up her pursuit, sensing something was wrong, but she was further away than the two of them, and would get there as soon as she could. She pushed down hard on the accelerator.

Fusco drove onto the end of a line of patrol cars parked in a stack where a command center was forming. He walked through the tangle of emergency vehicles and equipment that had rolled up on the street side of the restaurant, and only then could he see the damage. All the windows on the street side were blown out, and the emergency doors were wide open, looking into the blackness. Stretchers were rolling and the EMS workers were crunching over broken glass and debris everywhere on the sidewalk. There were quite a few people sitting or lying on the curb in front of the restaurant, with makeshift bandages and tissues wadded up, pressed against the wounds by passersby, until trained respondors could get there.

Fusco went closer to the doors of the restaurant and peered inside. What he saw made his blood run cold. If Reese was in there when the explosion happened, it would be a miracle if he had gotten out alive. Tables were splintered and thrown like sticks around what was left of the dining area. Ceiling tiles were blown down, and insulation and wiring were hanging out of the ceiling. Brick dividing walls were thrown over onto their sides. Gray dust filled the air, and there were no lights on, for as far as he could see. There were some white sheets draped over something bloody, deep inside where the worst of the damage appeared to be. Fusco called Harold, who was a few blocks away now, and Harold told him that he had brought Bear with him to help look for John.

"Do you have any idea where he was when the explosion went off?" Fusco asked.

"No, Detective. He only said he was at the restaurant and waiting for his informant to arrive. I tried to look for his cellphone signal before I left, but there was no signal. We will have to find him on our own. There is a roadblock ahead, and I think I am going to have to pull over. They aren't letting anyone pass. I am sending my position to you and Miss Shaw."

"I'm right behind you, Harold." Harold looked in the rear view mirror and Shaw's car was there. They pulled into a deserted public school parking lot and Shaw got out of her car. Bear stood up in the back seat, wagging his tail, and pacing back and forth as he caught sight of her approaching. She opened the back door and sat down next to him, rubbing his head, then scratching behind his ears, until he tipped over onto her lap to get his belly rubbed.

Fusco was half a block away, walking toward them, and they got out to meet him. He stopped to talk with the officers at the roadblock, and they all looked over at Harold and Shaw as Fusco was pointing their way. He waved them over, and Shaw started to leave with Bear. Harold didn't follow. Shaw turned around, with a questioning look.

"I'll just slow you down, Miss Shaw. Take Bear, and go with Detective Fusco. Find John. This should help. It's the shirt John was wearing when you were taking care of him the last time. Bear needs his scent. And I need to understand why the Machine didn't warn us that this was about to happen." Shaw nodded and turned away, walking quickly toward Fusco as Harold got back into his car to return to the office.

"How bad is it?" she asked when she got to his side.

"Bad. If he was in there when it went off–" he trailed off, shaking his head.

"The man is indestructible, Lionel. We'll find him. Let's go." They went back to the Mall, but swung around to another side to see if they could get in at a better spot. They were walking past a line of ambulances staged at the back, and the last one in the line had its back door ajar. Shaw gave Bear's leash to Fusco for a moment, while she looked inside and climbed into the back of the empty ambulance. She knew her way around them from her days as a medical resident, and started picking through the supply cabinets, pulling out what she wanted to bring in with her, and dumping the pile into a pillowcase she stripped off the pillow on the stretcher. She slung the bag over her shoulder and jumped down off the back of the ambulance deck.

"Jeez, Shaw, why don't you just help yourself?" Fusco said.

"I would do the same for you, too, Lionel – I think." They walked through an open emergency exit door at the back of a discount clothing store. Not a soul was in view, and they made their way along the aisles to the front. Shaw pointed to some vending machines with bottles of water in them.

"Grab a couple of water bottles, Lionel. We may need them in there. You can pay for them if it'll make you feel any better." Fusco frowned and went over to the machines, feeding in dollar bills until he could get two bottles of water to drop. Shaw put them into the pillowcase bag with the rest, and they kept walking, making a left into a long hallway inside the Mall that led back to the area where the restaurant was located. No one was on this side of the restaurant approach yet.

The closer they got, the more damage they started to see. Shaw stepped onto some glass from some of the windows that had blown out and she realized that Bear would be cut if he walked over the broken glass and other sharp debris.

"Wait a minute, Lionel." Shaw stopped and pulled out a thick roll of stretchy ace-wrap, EMT shears, and some silk surgical tape from the pillowcase. She knelt down next to Bear, wrapping layers of the bandage around each foot, like thick socks, cutting and taping the ends. Bear didn't know what to make of it at first, but Shaw distracted him with the shirt that Harold had given her to use as scent. She let him sniff it, and gave him the command " _Zoek"_. Bear went forward, tracking.

They were getting closer and there was more and more glass, mixed in with parts of ceiling tiles, bricks, wiring, drywall, and metal of every description. The emergency lights were off ahead, and it would be pitch black very soon. They could hear voices, loud, but far off, and the sounds of saws and generators running.

Bear was tracking, but it was getting harder and harder for him to find a path through the destruction. And the uneven, unstable footing made it hard for Shaw and Fusco to stay on their feet as well. Pieces of metal sticking up from the piles caught their clothing and every once in a while Bear would whimper from something sticking him. But he wasn't giving up, and went on.

Then they came to the area that must have been the restaurant. There was a huge hole opened up in the front wall, and they could see flashlights swinging in the darkness inside. Some bright lights on poles above heavy diesel generators were being positioned inside the building for the recovery and investigation.

Bear started barking and they heard the command " _Heir"_ in a weak voice. Reese was calling "here" to Bear, who was trying to climb through tangled wiring and large metal panels to get to him. Shaw called him back to her, so they could pick the best way to start moving toward Reese without making the pile crush down on top of him.

"John, can you hear us?" There was a weak reply, but they could definitely hear him under the pile. Now they knew where they had to dig to get to him. Just as Shaw started picking her way up through the pile, a flashlight beam swung in from behind them and a Rescue fireman poked his head through the blast hole in the front of the restaurant. Shaw turned back to him.

"We have a male victim trapped under debris, responding to voice commands. I need you to get your equipment in here now!" Shaw barked out, and he stood up a little straighter, nodded, and put a call out to his team on the street side of the restaurant. He gave a list of the equipment he needed and soon a line of firemen carrying rescue equipment and lights were climbing through the blast opening.

Shaw had been working her way through the rubble pile back to where she thought Reese would be. She swung her light back and forth through the pile, but she didn't see him. She called his name again, softly. Then she nearly jumped out of her skin, when his voice was right next to her. There was so much dust over everything that it all looked the same. It was only when he spoke that she could see his features. She told him to stay still and keep his eyes and mouth closed, while she wiped the thick layer of fine powder off him.

She reached into the pillowcase bag and brought out some small clean towels, and started wiping the layer off Reese's head. She tried to keep any more of it from going into his eyes or nose. As she wiped, Shaw could see heavy clots of dried blood caked with the dust on his scalp and face. Once his skin was clear of the loose, choking dust, she told him she was going to douse the remaining powder with one of the bottles of water from the bag.

She twisted it open and warned Reese before squeezing the water sideways across his eyelids, in a forceful stream. More powder and dirty water washed off his eyelids, down into the pile, and Shaw used the last of the water to wipe the rest of it clear from his eyes and face. Two rescue workers were setting up lights nearby and they were now able to see how Reese was encased in the pile. Shaw told Reese he could open his eyes now, and he looked at her, confused.

"How did you find me?"

"Bear did – now shut up and listen to me. Can you move your fingers and toes, John?"

"I think so, Shaw. It's hard to tell – there's not a lot of space."

"We're going to cut you out of here, John. So just do what they say, okay?" He was not responding. Shaw reached in near his face, and could feel his breath on her hand. And she could just get a fingertip onto his carotid under the jaw. The pulse was strong enough there. She had no idea what they were going to find under the pile, though, once they moved it off him.

Bear was next to her all of a sudden, and he was whimpering and trying to paw Reese free, but Shaw stopped him, so he didn't shred his paws on the sharp edges. His booties had come off his feet in the debris pile. He shifted from foot to foot, anxious, trying to get to him, then crouched down and stretched out to Reese, licking his face. Reese stirred for a moment and praised him, saying "good" to him in Dutch: " _Braaf."_

The rescue workers were ready to start pulling the pile off, and they asked Shaw to step back to give them access. Slowly, they started raising the metal panels, and cutting the wires and insulation free. Layer by layer, they worked the tangled pieces away from him.

Shaw called Harold with the news that they had found Reese, and she could hear the strain in his voice from his fear of the worst. When she told him that they were working to free him from a pile of debris, and that he was responding to her voice, she could hear the relief. She told him they would get Reese to a hospital to check for any internal injuries, broken bones, or head trauma. Once she had an update she would call him back.

Fusco had gone to help the Fire and Rescue workers look for other victims, but he had come back quickly. The number of casualties was actually quite small. Apparently, a desperate, agitated man was trying to take his own life, but had sent all the restaurant workers and patrons out before he blew himself up with gas from the line of stoves in the restaurant. Most of the injuries were from flying glass outside on the street when the windows shattered. A few others were injured when they were trying to run away in the mall after the explosion. The piles of debris where Reese was lying might hold other victims as well, unlucky like Reese, passing by when the blast had gone off. More rescues could be needed after his.

The workers were down to the last layer and they were cutting through an enormous nest of wiring that had acted like a cushion from the crush of materials on top of Reese. The nest had compressed under the load and was taking much of the weight in its coils.

The firemen pulled back the wiring and Reese was free. There were no obvious wounds on the side that they could see, but he was wearing a dark suit that was saturated with something that could be blood. His extremities seemed intact. The workers teamed up and one applied traction on Reese's neck while the other swung a brace around it and closed the stiff, hard plastic with hook-and-loop tape.

More men were coming up the pile with a bright orange backboard. Another was doing a trauma survey on Reese, feeling for anything unstable or potentially fractured along his spine, clavicles, ribs, pelvis and the long bones in his extremities. They felt underneath him as best they could. Someone else was getting vital signs. He was trying to talk with Reese, to check his mental status for his report, but Reese was not answering again.

 **Colorado, August, 1990**

Reese had gone swimming for most of the afternoon in the deep pool there in the river and then had climbed out to rest in the filtered sunlight on the flat rock for lazy hours, until the sun had gone behind the trees. It was getting cooler now, down at the water's edge, beneath the heavy canopy of trees.

There was a sound of small rocks and soil sliding down a hill, and he looked up to see a white-tailed doe with two spotted fawns following behind. She slowly advanced down the soft bank, ears flicking, nose twitching as she looked for any signs of danger. Reese was sitting up, and didn't move. He wanted to see what they would do. The doe made her way to the water's edge and Reese could see little waves spreading out on the still surface, as her tongue lapped the water. The fawns made their way up on either side of her, and the three silently sipped from the stream. The doe kept raising her head to look about.

She looked over at the flat rock and saw Reese sitting there. Her tail swiveled, flashing white fur, but her face was tranquil. She kept her eyes on him, and he was transfixed. She was so delicate, so different than the powerful bucks they brought back from hunting late in the year. Her eyes were dark and large and she seemed unafraid. Then he saw her lower her head slightly toward him, as though acknowledging his presence. He lowered his head very slowly back to her. She regarded him a little longer with her large, exquisite eyes, and he felt like she was trying to tell him something but he didn't know how to understand her. Then she backed away from the water, and slowly ascended the bank to the edge of the trees. He hoped she would turn back to look at him again before she disappeared, but she walked into the shadows and he couldn't see her any longer.

 **Manhattan, June, 2016**

The stretcher was rolling down the hallway and Reese was aware of the overhead lights as he passed below each bank. His eyes were closed but he could see the bright and dark pattern as the stretcher moved down the long hallway. He could hear one of the EMTs say "trauma one" to the other as they swung the stretcher around a corner.

Inside the trauma bay, the EMTs and two aides unbuckled the belts holding Reese on the stretcher. They pulled off the white hospital sheet under the belts, revealing his long frame belted onto the hard orange backboard. Four of them lifted the board, on the count of three, from the stretcher to an ER gurney. Once there, the EMTs backed away, leaving the ER staff to their work.

A nurse walked over to ask them what they had just transported, and the three men stood together for a few minutes as the EMTs signed out the case, reviewing vitals, and pertinent history. Then the nurse pulled the curtain around Reese's gurney. He and one of the aides got busy cutting along the seams of Reese's suit with sharp, angled shears until they could lift it off him. They made short work of his shirt, and the rest, covering him with a hospital gown.

The nurse wrapped a blood pressure cuff around one arm and clipped on an oxygen sensor to display on the monitor overhead. He took a full set of vitals, and charted them on a rolling computer monitor. One of the techs was pulling tubes of blood and labeling them with "John Doe" labels for now. An ER attending peeked around the curtain and asked if they were ready for her. The nurse gave her the history from the EMTs, and the attending got to work examining Reese.

Outside, Shaw and Fusco were asking where Reese had been taken. Fusco showed his badge to the clerk at the desk when she started to balk at giving them any information, and then she told them Reese was in the trauma bay. Shaw started to walk toward the room, but the clerk said "you can't go in there, Miss."

Fusco put his hand on Shaw's arm and held her back. "Let me buy you some coffee. They're going to need some time to see what's up, right?" Shaw was looking at his hand on her arm, and for a minute, Fusco thought she might just reach out and try to break it. But, then her face softened, and she looked him in the eye. "Fine," she said, with her jaw set. They walked back past the desk and into a nearby hallway that led back to the lobby.

"This coffee isn't half'-bad," Shaw said. She had suddenly realized when they got to the cafeteria that she was starving, and she loaded up a tray with food. Fusco was watching her eat, and shaking his head.

"No wonder you looked like you were going to break my hand back there – you probably had low blood sugar." Shaw smiled a squinty smile at him, and continued eating.

"So, how is Glasses doing?" Fusco asked.

"Happy that Reese is alive. But he wants to know why the Machine didn't tell us this was going to happen." Shaw was spooning rice pudding from a plastic cup, scraping the sides and bottom to get every last morsel. She washed it down with more coffee, then unwrapped another hot roast beef sandwich. She offered some to Fusco, who said "I thought you'd never ask."

He took one of the plastic covers from food Shaw had already eaten, and scooped half the sandwich, dripping brown gravy, onto the up-turned cover. His mood started to improve considerably, too.

In a darkened room down the hall from the trauma bay, Reese was lying on a narrow table that carried him smoothly through the center of a large, donut-shaped machine. It sounded like hundreds of marbles were circling around him inside the walls of the donut, as it scanned him from head to pelvis. Behind the glass window, a technician and two doctors were sitting, watching the CT images form on the screen. A few minutes later, they had some answers. The radiologist reviewed his findings with the ER doctor, who had come over personally to review them with him.

"I have to go through the images more carefully, but the preliminary read is that there is no head bleed, the neck is just the usual degenerative stuff we all have, chest is okay. He has a small subcapsular hematoma on the spleen, and maybe a hint of a contusion to the kidney on that side as well. Nothing else in the abdomen or pelvis that I see right now. Oh, and by the way, the plain films we shot before showed a dislocation of the left shoulder, but it reduced itself when we were positioning for the xrays. We took some extra views, just to be sure, and it's back in normal position. There is no fracture associated with the dislocation. This guy has a lot of old, healed injuries; he's pretty beaten up. Who is he?"

 **A few days later:**

It was dawn and gray light was just coming into his bedroom in his apartment. Reese was sitting up on the side of his bed, silhouetted with the soft morning light. He couldn't sleep. As he sat there, his eyes closed and his breathing gradually deepened like he was falling asleep, but as soon as he had tried to lay down, he popped awake each time. He couldn't find a comfortable position. His mind was racing. He still had a headache, days after the explosion. Reese couldn't remember a lot of it; just seeing Shaw's face, and he remembered Bear being there, but the rest was gone.

There was a sling on his left shoulder, with a wide matching swathe that circled around his chest and held his left arm close to his body. He had to keep it on when he slept, so his shoulder didn't dislocate again during his restless sleep. The nausea was back again, but he thought he would try to eat something more than soup today.

Reese gave up trying to sleep any longer for now and tipped forward off the edge of the bed, wincing as his sore muscles complained. He walked slowly, stiffly to the bathroom and the soft light flicked on as a sensor caught the movement. He walked closer to the mirror, and looked at his face. There was a purple bruise surrounding his left eye, slowly spreading further down his cheek each day, and the white part of the eye had turned dark red. The swelling was mostly gone now on the side of his head, but there were silver staples in his scalp and some dried blood still there in his hair. Under his shirt, and down on his legs, the skin was healing from dozens of puncture wounds all over him from glass and brick shrapnel that had missed embedding in the metal panels of the restaurant facade. He was glad he was unconscious when the doctor was digging it all out of him.

He pulled at the swathe, and the hook-and-loop tape separated with a long ripping sound. He lifted the padded strap of the sling up over his head with his right arm, and saw another dark purple bruise on the back of his uplifted arm in the mirror. He slid the sling downward and forward, off his left arm, and dropped the whole thing down onto the counter.

Then he used his right hand to pick up the tail of his tee-shirt, and slid it up over his head and down the left arm, so he didn't have to raise that side over his head. Every time he did that, it felt like his shoulder was going to dislocate again. He could see all the shrapnel wounds with the tee-shirt off, and more purple bruises, especially on his back over the lower ribs. At least the blood had stopped coloring his urine red from the bruise on his kidney.

In the soft, subdued light he surveyed himself once more in the mirror before he went to get showered: slowly, from his head down to his chest, his back and arms, his abdomen, and the legs below his shorts. Each scar and wound told a story. His body was a novel, a painful memoir of past adventures, successes and failures. But here he was, still alive.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 2 - SOUTH SUDAN COULD DO THAT TO PEOPLE  
**

* * *

 **South of Pibor, South Sudan, September, 2016**

Just outside the tent flaps, two men stood together in the heat, while an aide went off to find Jules. She was further down the dusty path, in a nearby tent, kneeling next to the cot where a tiny swaddled baby and her care-giver were seated. Jules had just examined the baby and was reading through the paper chart, checking for weight gain, number of feeds, wet diapers and more.

The woman holding the sleeping baby was one of the local women hired to come into camp each day, helping them care for the infants. Jules had seen her here for weeks, noticed that she often took on the sickest ones and sometimes, too, a young mother who arrived without family, struggling, separated from everything familiar. The woman's name was Ayen.

She was a dark-skinned, mature woman with high cheekbones, and large, almond-shaped eyes–haunting eyes, Jules thought–that had been witness to so much heartache in her land. Perhaps many would have bent under the weight, but instead, Jules could see a quiet grace in this woman's bearing; no wonder the younger women were drawn to her, like a mother.

Her face was striking–covered in raised swirls of parallel lines cut in an intricate design, the lines made from scarring her skin with a blade as a child, in the tradition of her Dinka tribe. To be scarified in this way, Jules knew she must be of high rank in her tribe.

Jules nodded and told her the baby was doing well in her care, gaining weight each day. She asked if there were any problems, but the woman shook her head no, saying "good baby" in the local dialect. Jules squeezed her arm, thanking her for all of the work caring for this little one. Ayen's lined face erupted in a dazzling, toothy smile, and she hugged the baby close, singing softly to her.

" _Chou-chou_ ," a young voice called. Jules stood as the aide entered the tent from behind her. In French, the young woman explained that a reporter from the New York Times was in the main office, and Jules was needed to escort him around camp. Masud, their main surgeon, was going to take him, but had been called away to urgent surgery just now.

Jules nodded and the two women said goodbye to Ayen, then walked quickly back down the path to the office. As Jules approached, Masud's bearded face lit up with his smile. Everything about him was over-the-top, and it always delighted her: big laugh, big voice, big wide, deep chest, with mounds of graying chest hair popping out of the v-neck of his scrubs. As she approached he threw his arms out wide and greeted her with his deep, resonant voice.

" _Ç_ _a va, Chou-chou_ ," he said, kissing her on each cheek. He quickly repeated the same story, in French, then turned to introduce her to the reporter.

"Doctor Julia Pope, Mr. Nick Harris," he tried in English, with a heavy Egyptian accent, as he backed away, blowing a kiss to Jules, rushing off to the surgery.

"Doctor Pope, nice to meet you," Nick said, a grateful smile on his face. "I'm afraid my French is pretty rusty. Thanks for coming to show me around." Jules nodded. She stopped to look at him more closely. There was something about him that was drawing her attention. He had kind eyes, she thought; kind, but tired, or maybe weary, as though from seeing too much that was hard to see, and for too long. There was a sense of suffering around him–South Sudan could do that to people.

"My pleasure," Jules replied, and the two turned back down the dirt path together. He went on to explain that he was working on a story about the aftermath of South Sudan's independence. He already knew that their main medical site in Pibor had to be abandoned back in February due to heavy fighting nearby, and that their staff had fallen back to a U.N. site for protection.

Nick shared that he had stopped in Pibor on his way here, and he shook his head as he looked over to Jules, his eyes narrowed and serious. The clinic had been looted and wrecked. Their small hospital building and hundreds of tents had been torched. Everything else usable had been stripped out of the camp. Now it was just a few empty metal bed frames weathering in the open air, and the hill nearby stretching far off into the distance, that was a deserted graveyard. Jules nodded. She had seen it for herself a few weeks before, and seeing it like that had felt like a kick in the gut to all of the staff.

They had withdrawn with little time to pack out their supplies when the fighting had come too close to their position. So much had been left behind and lost to the fighters who overran the site. Medications, surgical supplies, equipment, safe extra water for making formula for the babies, all had been left behind and lost in the looting. Medical sites were supposed to be exempt from this kind of attack, by the rules of war, but all they could do afterward was to condemn the action in the media.

They had moved their facilities to a U.N. medical site on the other side of Pibor initially, but the vast number of refugees from the conflict had gone south, trying to escape the violence. When they finally stopped running, the medical groups had started going in, first with their mobile units.

Now, Jules' ground unit was here, struggling to establish a more permanent medical facility to serve the seven thousand families already here. Every day, more came in. They were sick, weak and malnourished, injured in the fighting, traumatized from fleeing it all over again. And soon the rainy season would be here, adding to their misery. The locals built homes shaped like gourds, the wide bases perched high off the ground on stilts, to protect them from the rain and mud. Here there were only tents on the bare earth.

With on-going fighting north of their position, the clinic had been having trouble getting re-supplied. The road to the camp was risky for truck convoys. They were trying to arrange an airdrop, by helicopter coming out of Juba, either later today or tomorrow. Otherwise, there was little to offer patients beyond the meager supplies they had been able to transport with them for the new camp. The busy graveyard here was testament to that.

The two stepped into the baby re-feeding tent, where Jules had been earlier. She explained to Nick that the severely malnourished babies could not tolerate restarting normal feeding, even breast milk, when they first arrived. There were ten steps that they followed here to help the baby recover from the profound metabolic changes and infection, before they could begin normal feeding. The babies in this tent had graduated through the ten steps, and some had been re-united with their mothers.

Jules watched the reporter kneel down next to a cot with a mother and baby resting there. He smiled and nodded to the woman, reaching out to touch the tiny hand at the edge of the blanket, softly stroking it with the pad of his pinky. The baby stirred and suckled briefly. Nick smiled and raised up again. Jules could see pain in his eyes that could not be covered by his smile. She had the urge to reach out and comfort him in some way, but restrained herself. He wouldn't know that she was aware of his suffering.

They walked further down the dirt path to another smaller tent. Inside was one person, a man, lying on his side, his right leg elevated on a pillow made from a folded-over tattered towel. On the inner leg, above the point of his bony ankle, was an ulcer crater about as wide as a thumbnail. There was a small piece of wood, a matchstick, lying across the ulcer with what looked like a thin white string coming out of the center and winding around the stick. Jules placed her hand on the man's shoulder, asking him if he was in any pain now. The man shook his head, no. Nick looked at Jules, grimacing.

"What is that?"

"He was infested with guinea worm larva, by drinking contaminated water about a year ago. The larva go through stages inside him over the year. This is a mature female worm that has made its way down his leg under the skin, and has broken out through the ulcer. He's winding the worm around the matchstick, slowly extracting it from his body." Nick closed his eyes and shuddered for a moment.

"My God, doesn't he feel that?"

"Yes, very much. The worm causes severe burning pain in the legs as it travels down inside. He can't stand, can't work, can't make food to feed himself. It can take up to two weeks to extract the worm, but the pain can last for months."

"Isn't there an antibiotic or something else to treat him?" Nick asked, averting his eyes from the ulcer.

"Unfortunately, there is no medication, no cure, and no vaccine to prevent it. The disease is almost eradicated in the rest of the world. If it weren't for the civil war here, it would be gone everywhere. This is the main treatment they have, " Jules said, motioning to the matchstick on the wound. Just then a woman and two children entered the tent with food for the man on the cot. The woman nodded in acknowledgment to Jules, and avoided eye contact with Nick.

They turned back to the opening in the tent, which flapped open and a young boy peered in shyly at them.

" _Jou-jou, l_ _é_ _t_ _é_ _l_ _é_ _phone_." She smiled and winked playfully at the small boy, and he disappeared back down the path before they could get to the tent flaps.

"I have a call back at the office. Let's go back there and then we can decide what else you want to see." They walked briskly back to the office and Jules lifted the phone, expecting one of the staff back in France who was helping to coordinate the airdrop.

" _All_ _ô_ ," she said. Then her expression turned to smiles.

"Harold! What a surprise! How are you, _ch_ _é_ _ri_?" She listened while her long-time friend, Harold Finch, apologized for intruding into her day and went on to ask if she could get in touch with him regarding an important personal matter when she returned to the States. His voice sounded worried to her.

"Harold, are you alright?" She listened for a few minutes, and then looked relieved. After a little longer, she nodded.

"Yes, yes, I understand. There is someone you want me to see, a colleague of yours who is having some trouble. Well, we're leaving here at the end of the month. Do you think that is soon enough?" She listened while Harold explained a little more. "Uh-huh, I was going to fly into Calais and stop at the apartment, but I can just as easily fly through to New York directly from Paris. Why don't I call you when I get in. You can tell me what this is all about then, OK?" She listened and nodded again, then blew a kiss into the phone and told him she would see him soon.

Nick was standing some distance away, waiting for her but not wanting to eavesdrop on her private call. He caught her movement out of the corner of his eye as she walked back toward him.

"Would you like to stop for a few minutes and have something to drink?" Jules offered. He smiled and nodded. She led him to a nearby tent that served as their Mess. A few of the staff nurses were just finishing their break, sharing coffee and some of the popular local spongy bread.

On their way out, they stopped to say hello and Jules introduced them to Nick. His eyes opened wide as the two women both started speaking excitedly to him in French. He looked helplessly to Jules, who smiled and broke in, telling them he didn't speak French, that he was there doing a story for the New York Times and so on. They giggled and told him they were sorry they had been rude, but he insisted that he had enjoyed hearing their beautiful language. They giggled again and walked off together, waving goodbye.

" _Ç_ _a va, Chou-chou_ ," one called out, as they left the tent.

"What does that mean – _chou-chou_?" Nick asked as they went up to the small counter to serve themselves a drink.

"Ah, well, when I first started working with this group, there was a little boy who heard them call me Jules, but shortened it to _jou-jou_ , French for a child's plaything, or stuffed toy. When my colleagues heard that, they started calling me _chou-chou_. It is a term of endearment in French."

"Does it have a meaning?" he asked. Jules smiled and nodded yes.

"It doesn't translate so well into English, but it means "my little cabbages"." The two laughed and made their way back to a table with their coffees and sponge bread.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 3 - WITH YOUR PERMISSION**

* * *

 **Upstate New York, October, 2016**

The two of them were seated together in her kitchen, her favorite–and least threatening–place in the house, yet she could see how Reese held himself at the ready, scanning the room, checking for exits, searching for any threats, she imagined. All the while, though, he believed he had made himself appear at ease, blank and unreadable to the casual observer.

Jules was not the casual observer. She was a physician, with long years of honing her skills. Day after day, her practiced eye fell naturally on the subtlest details of a patient's appearance. Reese couldn't guess that it was an automatic reflex, then, for her to do the same with him, sitting across the table at an ideal vantage point. Afternoon sun through the kitchen window illuminated his features for her.

She noticed how the small muscles along his jawline were taut. Up at the opening of his collar, his neck and chest skin stretched too tightly over his frame; the pulse at the base of his throat rocked too rapidly, too forcefully, beneath the skin–all signs broadcasting to her a heightened inner tension and alerted state.

He was too thin, his skin was pale and there were dark circles under his eyes. Reese had not been sleeping well, she thought. And perhaps the rest were from pushing himself, missing meals, ignoring his body's signals to stop, eat, sleep. Jules was aware of his restless eyes studying her features for any clue of what was to come, more evidence of his discomfort. Reese broke the silence first.

"Why am I here, Doc?" His voice was so very soft, nearly a whisper. It had the odd effect of making him seem controlled, not calm. One could feel paradoxically threatened by it, wary from this too-soft voice. It made one strain a bit too much to hear it.

She made him wait before answering. She saw that he made his eyes seem friendly but his mouth and face had hardly moved as he spoke–and there was no real expression in the eyes, no easy movement in the body, just the peculiarly soft voice from the blank-eyed face.

On his part, Reese could see how unhurried she was. He knew of course that she was a doctor, Julia Pope, "Jules" to her colleagues, and probably used to being taken seriously. She carried herself with an unmistakable air of authority. Something about her told Reese not to underestimate her.

Jules sensed that they were about to play a little mental game of hide-and-seek. He would expect her to press him, to seek information and more. And he would divert her away from it, protecting the soft underbelly he hid so well from scrutiny. She decided to be direct with him.

"I know a little bit about you, Mr. Reese. I know you don't want to be exposed, opened up, inspected –" like some carcass on the side of the road, she thought. She could feel the strain of it; perhaps he was picturing someone poking, lifting up the layers and looking deeper where the real damage would be. Reese didn't show anything–nothing to confirm it.

"You should know I'm not here to interrogate you. You are free to be here or not. Nothing is preventing you from leaving any time you want to." Still nothing. She sat forward, emphasizing her next words.

" I want you to feel free to go anywhere, look at anything, do whatever you need to do to assure yourself it's safe to be here, if you decide to stay. If we do work together, I won't be asking you your life's story. There's hardly any talking at all." She stopped speaking for a moment to let her words sink in. She thought she saw a tiny flash of relief, surprise, curiosity in his expression. Perhaps he was trying to visualize what it _would_ be like, then, if they worked together. She gave him some time to think about it.

Unseen by Reese, Jules weighed assessing another stream of data that could have been informing her at that moment. She knew that just beyond her immediate attention there was a gathering of data that Reese couldn't prevent radiating out toward her. Over the years, she had tuned herself, learned to sense and make sense of it. She just had to make a tiny change in the direction of her attention, and it would be there, waiting for her. It would scratch that itch that was so familiar to her on the first meeting with any new patient.

She described it as an internal "knowing", a delicate Flow of information that came to her in the presence of her patient. It didn't come to her on one of the known sensory pathways. It was neither visual, auditory, touch, olfactory, nor taste. She didn't know how she knew it; it just appeared in a place behind her eyes, in her deep brain, present. It had taken years for her to learn to trust it.

Jules used it to flesh out her patient more thoroughly in her mind, in a way that talking couldn't fully do. But today, with Reese, she decided not to sample it. She let it go, preserving that piece of his privacy for now, while he was deciding whether or not he would work with her. If not, there was no need to go any deeper. And better for her, too. Once sampled, it was harder to let it go. It would linger on afterwards and disturb her peace, especially if he were badly wounded, but still chose to leave.

Reese could sense her preoccupation with something, but she had recovered and now seemed poised to go on. He had also noticed that when she spoke, it was with a slight European accent, French he thought. He tucked that away, to explore later.

"What is it that you do, exactly?" he said in that same soft, barely audible voice.

"I've worked with many people over the years. Our mutual friend, Harold, knows my work and he asked me to meet with you. Harold seems concerned for your–safety." She had hesitated just for a second, to find an appropriate word, watching for any reaction from him.

"Harold trusts me to help people, just like he trusts you to help people. We do the same thing–different techniques." She felt a slight lessening of the tension in his body. Ah, good. He responded to Harold's name in a positive way.

"How do you know Harold?" His eyes had softened a bit as he asked, though his voice remained too quiet. Jules smiled as she thought about Harold, her eyes shifting away, recalling her first meeting with him and their long, close collaboration since.

"Harold and I met at a lecture I was giving years ago. We found that we have many of the same interests. Whenever I am in the States, we try to get together. Harold is a trusted friend." She was still smiling when her eyes returned to Reese. She caught him enjoying her expression. Good. This was starting to look like it could land on it's feet. She decided to build further on Reese's relationship with Harold.

"I can tell that Harold cares about you. He wants you to consider working with me for a bit. I am going to be in the States for awhile–six or nine months this time, so we could set up some time to meet. I like to work here, in my house, but Harold also offered us a space in Manhattan if it's more convenient."

"What exactly would we be doing if we worked together?" Reese asked, still trying to get some kind of footing in the situation. She smiled warmly toward him, aware of his need for clarity. His face remained expressionless; his eyes searched her, again, and she knew he had so many questions. She felt ready to throw him a curve and see how he handled it.

"It's easier if I show you, rather than trying to talk about it. I'm not much for talking. So–with your permission–? " She looked to him expectantly. There was no hint in her expression what she had in mind. He didn't know how to respond. She kept her eyes on him and smiled–waiting for anything recognizable: a small frown, hesitancy.

"I am unarmed– " She raised her open hands and arms in the air where he could see them.

"I doubt that," he said, just audibly. He did not meet her eyes, but automatically adjusted himself on his chair to move quickly if necessary. She went on, undaunted.

"You're all covered up in your suit, so let's use my arm." She slid her sleeve up above her right elbow, baring her skin, and extended her arm on the flat surface toward him. Then, raising her eyes to his, she said "let me show you what I do. Lay your hand across my forearm." The expression on his face was unreadable; she leaned toward him, inviting him to follow her instructions.

He reached forward slowly, scanning her arm before placing his hand gingerly across it. His palm was cool and a little clammy. His long fingers extended out onto the table top. For a brief moment, a small amount of the data from that initial touch registered. He watched her eyelids close as she took in the sensation.

There was something else, but it happened too quickly. For a second he felt alarmed– something about this triggered an old memory that had ended badly. Reflexively, instantly, he was standing up, scanning the room around him, reaching under his jacket for his weapon.

Nothing happened. Moments passed. He looked back at her and saw something he didn't expect in her eyes. Jules wasn't frightened or alarmed. Her eyes were clear, full of–compassion?–pity? –he was not certain what.

Reese sat down again, lowering his eyes to the table, clasping his hands together between the two of them. He looked pale and exhausted. He needed a deeper breath to reset himself; clearly, he looked uncomfortable to Jules. To respond, she gently leaned forward, and extended her own two hands, above and nearly touching his: "may I?" she asked. Her eyes were steady on him, with no hint of emotion to sidetrack this exchange.

Reese lifted his head and for a moment he didn't hide everything. He let her see some of the fatigue, the dead cold inside him. She held steady, and left her hands poised above his. Then, at his nod, she wrapped her hands firmly over his, leaning toward him across the table.

With soft, gray-blue eyes she spoke to him. The sound of her voice and the warmth of her hands on his began to drain off the feeling. What was it? It was sliding away from him. He couldn't get back to it. He felt himself pulled in, going back to a memory from long ago.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 4 - THE RIVER AND THE OLD CANOE**

* * *

 **Colorado, 1990**

Reese was out in his father's old canoe, as a young man. He saw himself leaning back and letting the river carry him slowly along, as he had done so many times. He could hear the wet lapping against the sides of the canoe, could feel the bright sunshine filtered through overhead boughs, playing over his skin. The canoe took him in and out of deep shadows, alternating between hot sun and chilly darkness. Even with just the memory of it, the skin of his arms reacted to the chill – prickling from goose flesh.

Jules talked on, softly, gently, but he didn't hear her exact words, only their sound. He wanted to stop and figure out why he was only hearing the sounds, but he couldn't focus on it. He was rocking, moving on the river, letting it carry him along.

There were some birds calling out, then answers from some others. They began to chat. A bullfrog interrupted. Then he became aware of clicking. He knew this sound from his boyhood. Dragonflies were darting back and forth at the river's edge, their cellophane wings clicking as they swooped and banked in tight turns above the muddy shore. He could smell the heavy muck heated by the long day's sun overhead.

The air was alive with buzzing insects, bird calls, the sounds of fish jumping in the river. Under him, river water swirled around the submerged rocks, forming eddies at the surface and tipping the canoe as it found its way through. It pushed the canoe on further downstream, in the faster current now, covering distance quickly. Trees thinned out on the river banks, and soon were replaced with low shrubs crowding up to the edge.

The light began to dim as he drifted. The heat gave way to a welcome cooling breeze, stirring the cattail stands. Heavy brown heads jutted up from thick green stalks and thudded against one another in the breeze. He saw himself lying in the canoe, drowsy, drifting, smiling. It was as though he had never left.

Further down, the river gurgled and he could hear the throaty sound of smooth round rocks disturbed, lifted up and then tumbling against one another in the deeper water of the channel under him. The same current pushed his canoe closer toward the shore as it rounded a curve, sending him off into calmer waters. He could hear the wind's breath softly sighing in the long-needle pines on the hill, hypnotic. All was as it should be.

It seemed as though he had drifted for hours when he heard a sound from the bottom of the canoe, felt it rise up and slide over smooth rock. He looked over the side and in the clear water saw mossy mounds of river rock that lay just below the surface. He was slowing down now and then he stopped, sliding up onto the rocks in shallow water.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 5 - HE WAS ALLOWING IT**

* * *

 **Upstate New York, October, 2016**

Before he opened his eyes, Reese took stock. The light was indeed dim. Music was playing around him–an instrumental with soothing deep bass tones, with piano, oboe, and guitar weaving the soft melodic tones on top. He felt the music gently vibrating in his chest. The air felt warm on him. There was no breeze, just some comforting kitchen smells of brewed coffee, lemons, onions, some herbs.

He was still sitting in the chair, with his hands enfolded by hers. Jules had stopped talking and sat with eyes half-closed, as though meditating. She heard Reese take a different breath and it stirred her from her own quiet place. When she looked up at his face, it was transformed, at least around the eyes. The lines had softened and relaxed. He looked drowsy now, almost reachable.

Encouraged, she asked "how do you feel?" He side-stepped the question and asked how long they had been sitting there.

"Maybe a half-hour," she said, but he protested that it was evening now and they must have been there for hours. She reached out for a slender black case with colorful tiny buttons on one end. At her touch, shades lifted and daylight flooded in. The music volume quieted a bit.

She brought her hand back slowly, in a small test, gently re-wrapping his as before. He had seen her move, but Reese had not pulled his hands away when he had the chance. He had left them there, enfolded by her own. This was good, she thought. He was allowing it.

Looking around him at the room, he asked "what happens now?"

"Nothing needs to happen. I recommend that you give yourself some time – try and stay in this state as long as you can. It is actually a healing state. Rest, and let the body adjust. We can talk later if you like. I want to answer whatever questions you have."

There was something unusual about her voice, he thought. It had a certain quality that he couldn't quite describe at the moment, but when she was talking before it had made him feel more at ease, calmer inside. Even so, he didn't like to stay in one place for too long. It was his habit to keep moving.

Jules could see the conflict in him; part of him wanted to bolt, just get away; another was pulling for staying–to find out more, to get answers. She pressed Reese to stay a little longer.

"Harold gave you these next three days off. You don't have to go back tonight. He wants you to take care of yourself, to hear what I have to say. Then you can decide for yourself. I hope you'll give it a chance. Feel free to look around. Go anywhere, look at anything. I want you to do whatever you need to do to feel safe here." She lifted her hands from his.

"I am going to go take a shower and then finish dinner. Love to cook– hope you decide to stay." She rose and walked off deeper into the house while he stood up and stretched. He heard her accent a little more clearly now, definitely French.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 6 - SECOND WIND**

* * *

Reese searched through the house, except for the room where Jules was showering. In her bedroom, under the cover of a small, simple carved wooden box on the top of her dresser he found two items, like small treasures. There was a tattered rough blue cloth and on top of that was a necklace with a small metal heart engraved with the words " _Pour_ _Aluel_ ". Reese noticed the box was kept separately from her other belongings, as though it had some special significance.

There were other small pieces of sculpture, carvings, and woven fabrics from all over the world scattered throughout her house. The design of the house itself felt Asian, but it was furnished with Scandinavian teak, leather, glass and fabrics. She liked hand-made pieces by the look of it.

In one room, down the hall from her kitchen, there was a heavy oak padded treatment table set up in the middle, and the walls around it held sets of colored bowls: clear, blue, milky white, rose pink. Some were just seven or eight inches in diameter, and others closer to 30 inches. They looked a little like some form of glass, but he wasn't sure what they were made from. They sat on sturdy shelves, with what looked like long tubular mallets covered in suede next to the bowls. Another shelf held simple, unadorned brass bowls with wooden mallets. Reese flicked his finger on the edge of one of the largest milky white bowls, and a deep musical note rang out into the house, reverberating long after. It made a surprisingly powerful vibration inside the room, and he could even feel it in his chest.

Further along on his rounds, he noticed a spot where the afternoon sun flooded in onto a stone wall outside. An outdoor shower was tucked inside the bend of the wall and it caught his attention. It had been hot all day today, a sunny, spectacular Indian Summer day, but Reese was tired and sticky from the long drive up. He had had little sleep last night before getting into his car this morning. A shower would help him get his second wind. He went outside to check, and the shower was working perfectly.

It had been years since he had showered outdoors; it felt better than he remembered. He stood for a long time in the private nook at the bend in the wall, letting the soapy water slide over his skin. Bright sunshine sparkled in the spray. The air was warm and still outside, a little humid.

It brought back the feeling of his dream earlier. He could get back to the feeling of it–the canoe, drifting downriver, the birds, the dragonflies. He heard the cattails and the sighing sound of the breeze in the trees; then, the rocks under the metal canoe, lifting it to a stop.

The dream had left him in an unfamiliar state. He felt clear inside, calm, and he couldn't help but notice a remarkable absence of his own internal dialogue. It was a comfortably empty state, where he felt reset on some level. But beneath that, Reese sensed the outlines of a deep well of dark heavy thoughts, wrapped around with a thick layer of exhaustion. He backed away from that.

After the long shower, he went back to his room and pulled out fresh clothing from his duffle bag, dressing more casually, leaving his weapon in his bag this time. Down the hall, past his room, then up a flight of steps, he found a chair looking out through a bank of tall windows at the back acreage. The chair was all black leather, steel, and heavy teak wood, and it leaned back like a recliner on its base. He was soon floating again with the late afternoon sun slanting across his body. Cooking smells drifted up from the kitchen.

Again he felt the afterglow of his earlier dream. He seemed to be able to get back into it at will. Jules had been right. He had the sense of resting. There was an unaccustomed quiet in his thoughts. He felt well-supported on a long thick pad of warm leather. Its smell filled his nose, and the warm skin reminded him of her hands on his. It was reassuring, somehow. Reese let himself sink into this feeling and closed his eyes. He thought about staying.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 7 - HANDS ON**

* * *

Jules had prepared a dinner featuring a roasted chicken with many small dishes of freshly-made sides, full of taste, that she served smorgasbord-style. The simple roasted chicken had an herb paste spread across the meat, beneath the deeply browned skin, that had infused it with intense flavor. They filled their plates, returning again and again, sampling from this bowl and that tray, trying the various tastes, and sharing friendly small-talk and a little French wine.

After dinner, they moved over to a room with a large fireplace. She asked him if he wanted to get a fire going and he set to it, though he only had to light it. Soon a trace smell of well-seasoned oak and cherry hardwoods drifted into the room as the fireplace crackled. She poured some tea for them and they finally sat down facing one another on a large L-shaped couch. Jules spoke first.

"I want to answer the questions you must have. Did Harold tell you anything before you left? I can't picture you agreeing to come here without some explanation." She studied his face. His eyes were averted, looking over at the fire.

"Harold said this is some kind of a gift. He wanted to do something for me."

"He told me you saved his life again–stepped in front of a bullet, he said, to save his life." Reese just stared at the fire.

"I owe him a debt I can't repay." He looked her directly in the eyes as he said it, and she could see something fierce well up behind his eyes. She held his look without reacting to the emotion.

"I understand. We have been friends for years. I was in private practice at the time we met and doing some teaching on the side. He came to a lecture I gave and introduced himself. Harold turned out to be the best man I have ever known." She saw him nod his head. They were quiet for a time, deep in their own thoughts.

"Is it alright if I turn down the lights? I love the firelight." Reese nodded and Jules reached over to the table lamp to turn off the light. For a little while they sat quietly in the dancing light from the fireplace.

"You said you were in private practice when you met Harold –" She nodded and explained.

"I was a doctor for years, but I wanted to work in a different way, so I left private practice. Now, I divide my time working overseas and here, teaching."

"What kind of a doctor?"

"I trained originally as an internist and pediatrician. I did primary care for nearly twenty years."

"What was all that with your arm?"

"Part of my training was to treat musculoskeletal problems–muscles, joints, soft tissues, spine. It's something I love to do. I expanded my original training over the years. The work I do now is far more complex than what I learned in medical school." He nodded and then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"What happened to me today?"

"Tell me what you saw in your dream." At first, he hesitated to say it out loud. But somehow the dim light and the gentle warmth of the fire made it seem easier to talk.

"When you had your hands over mine, something happened and I couldn't hear what you were saying. I mean, I could hear the sound, but not the words themselves." His eyes were questioning.

"Umm," she nodded as if to encourage him on.

"Something made me remember the old canoe my father had at the lake when I was a kid. I saw myself in the canoe going down a river."

"Did you know this place?"

"I spent a lot of time there when I was young."

"How did it make you feel?" He fidgeted, looking for the words.

"Quiet inside–I guess. The voice in my head stopped."

"Umm," She let the quiet take over again. It was a comfortable silence. She enjoyed watching him settle into the corner of the leather couch. The leather was old and soft to touch, with a nubby surface that could still be appreciated even though it had thinned and smoothed as it aged over the years. The leather, warmed by their bodies and by the fire, gave off a comforting aroma that enveloped them. The air was full of cherry and oak wood and leather. Such a comfort. She sipped some tea.

"I believe that your dream was allowing you to enter a different state than the usual one. I consider it a healing state. Most of us run around every day multi-tasking, analyzing, consumed with the busy-ness of our lives, and it's hard to stop: too many intrusive gadgets, too many interruptions. We are constantly going, without any true down-time. This healing state is a break from the complexity in our daily lives. It is something we all need, to stay balanced and healthy. That feeling you had was how the alpha state feels."

He didn't say anything. She couldn't see his face. The fire was burning down and the light was dimmer now. She got up and poked the logs, and threw a few fresh ones on top. The logs sizzled and popped in the fireplace, showers of flaming embers exploding out of the hot wood behind her as she returned to the couch.

Jules sat down again, this time moving close to Reese and sitting cross-legged on the near end, facing him, close to crowding his personal space. She saw where his collar was open, that his neck and chest were relaxed. The pulse at the base of his throat was slow and regular. He looked deeply into her face, and she could sense his energy holding, a subtle pressure back toward her presence, so close to him; this time he was different, calmer inside, and more receptive.

"Will you try it with me again?" she asked as she raised her sleeve above her elbow. "Put your hand on my arm, here, and tell me what you feel." This time he didn't hesitate. She smiled to herself as he gently laid his hand across her arm. She paid no attention to the incoming sensation, but turned to him. "What do you notice?" He concentrated for a moment and nodded.

"The heat of your skin. It is smooth and very–soft." She nodded.

"Stay on that top level of the skin. Do you notice anything else?" He was silent as he tried to feel anything else.

"No, I don't think so–"

"Do you notice the hairs on the back of the arm, and none on the inside of the arm?" He changed his grip and she could feel the soft pressure of his fingers testing the surface of her forearm.

"Yes," he said. The firelight bathed the room in an orange glow, but the light was friendly, not glaring. Her voice was steady and reassuring.

"Now bring your attention to the next layer. Can you feel the thickness of the skin?" He couldn't at first until he tried to move the skin. Then he pulled it into traction, lifted it up between his fingers, and nodded.

"Yes." He lightly pushed and pulled her skin with his fingers as he studied its depth at different parts of her forearm.

"Do you feel the texture?" He nodded right away. He lifted it and felt it snap back when he released it.

"Now try to feel the muscle layer, below the top layer. How does that feel?" She purposely left the muscles relaxed so he could sense their outlines, feel the fullness of the relaxed muscle bellies, sense the amount of give when he pushed on them.

"Long, curved smooth surface. Thicker in the middle than at the ends. Springs back if you press on it." She nodded at each point.

"Can you tell how the fibers run in the muscle?" He ran his fingers over her lower forearm, then higher up near her elbow until finally he explored a thicker muscle adjacent to the inner elbow.

"I feel the fibers here. They run from the elbow down to–here." He marked the spot with his thumb.

"Now try again and see if the fibers feel the same through the whole muscle." She tightened the muscles directly under his fingertips by extending her wrist backwards with some force. He looked up and she knew he had felt the tensing.

"This is the change I look for in the muscle when I treat patients. The fibers tense and feel tight instead of soft and relaxed. I work with that spasmed muscle, releasing the tension by putting the body part into a position of comfort. When the muscle has slack in it, at just the right angle, with just the right small forces applied, the muscle structure can reset itself in a minute and a half. My job is to scan for changes in the tissues, then treat what I find. It is a very gentle technique that I can use on a newborn or a very frail elderly person, or anyone in between." She smiled and he nodded.

"Now one last piece to try for fun. Bring your attention to the space where the skin ends and the muscle layer starts. I am going to exaggerate my breathing and I want you to see if you can feel the change in the muscle layer when I breathe deeper."

Jules leaned back and closed her eyes, taking in a long slow deep breath. Her chest rose and the muscles of her ribcage and shoulder stretched, pulling tighter as her ribcage lifted. A slight sliding motion could be perceived just under the skin layer as the muscles stretched. It was a subtle change for the fingertips to perceive. Then when she exhaled her long slow breath, the muscles softly recoiled, sliding back the other way, resuming their fuller, softer shape at rest.

He tried for several minutes to sense anything happening, but he drew a blank.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to feel," he said.

"Don't worry. It's an acquired skill," she replied, smiling warmly.

She launched into a detailed explanation of what he was feeling and her face lit up with the pleasure of the explanation. Reese recalled that she was a teacher for many years.

"Think of all of the main structures in your body–bones, muscles, organs, nerves, blood vessels –each one covered in a thin layer of dense tissue called fascia. Every organ, all of your insides, are tightly coated with this layer. It is very strong if you stretch it lengthwise, but if you poke it perpendicularly, your finger goes right through it. It has high tensile strength–" She looked up to see if he understood so far.

"Think of having this layer of tissue everywhere and that if you then subtracted all of the structures inside the fascia, you would have an exact replica of your insides, in fascia. Now just like a spider web, if I pull on one part of the web, the force distributes out along the whole web and stretches it–" She gestured with her fingers spreading out in the air in front of her.

"The same thing happens in the body. If a force is applied, the fascia distributes it out away from the source, through all of the fascia. When the fascia stretches, the muscles wrapped inside it will stretch and thin out, too. You can feel them sliding a little bit under the layer of skin above them.

"When I take a deep breath, you can feel the muscles sliding, from the shoulder, to the elbow and down to the wrist and hand. You can even pick up the changes in breathing down on the thigh or the foot. You can feel it anywhere, really. It's just a matter of training the hands what to attend to."

She smiled triumphantly as she finished her explanation. His eyes smiled and he said something about it being geek to him, but she chuckled and said she was sure he got it. She stayed silent and waited for him to speak. After a long while his face became serious again.

"What is all of this about? I still don't know why I am here." She nodded and turned her body to face him. She took his hand and held it gently between her palms.

"I want you to understand that I want you to trust in me. I love to do this work. It is deep and personal. It requires trust to be successful, and I suspect that in your line of work it is dangerous to trust people.

"Harold sent you here to me because he is hoping you will let me help you find balance in your life." She watched him start to shake his head no. She expected it. She stopped him from speaking.

"You have seen and done a lot of painful things over the years. Your superiors expected you to carry out orders that you had to learn to live with. All of that changes you. But it doesn't have to destroy you." He lifted his hands to protest, and she cut him off again.

"You need to come out of this hyper-vigilant state even if it's saved your life many times before. It burns you up inside. You have to let your body re-balance, reset itself. If you don't, internally you wind tighter and tighter, get angry, distracted, full of pain and rage, until something bad happens."

He shook his head no, and in his quiet voice said, "I can handle things on my own. I don't need to come and talk about my past and my feelings to you or anyone else. That's not what people like me do. We don't expect to have a normal life like everyone else. We burn hot and go out. That's the way it is." His eyes were dark and intense, his face drawn.

"I understand how you can think that. But I would like to show you this next few days how it could be different, how you could get back some of the normal feelings you used to have. I'm not a shrink. I am not expecting you to spill your guts to me. You don't really have to talk at all when I treat you. I am working on a different level and we don't need to talk about it."

He looked concerned, unable to grasp how she could do that. Jules could feel him shrinking back and starting to shield himself.

"No, wait. I don't want to invade your privacy or your space. I'm not trained like you. I don't really know what you do. But I do know it's dangerous, it's lethal, and it is–necessary. That doesn't make it any easier to live with, though, does it? It is a heavy burden if you let it stay inside you this way. I want to teach you how to release that burden so you can be light on your feet again, clearer, like the warrior you intended to be." Reese thought that was an odd thing for her to say. He turned it over and over in his mind.

"I don't see what all this is supposed to do," he said at last. There was a sadness in his eyes, or maybe resignation, loss. She sensed that this was the right moment for a rescue attempt. She decided to push him harder.

"It's so much harder to talk about than to show you. Let me work on you right here. You can stretch out on the couch." She moved from the couch and before he could protest, pulled him from the corner onto the longer section, guiding him to lie on his back. She handled him, moved him around as she wanted, without thinking about how Reese would react to it. It was as though having him touch her first, in the way he had, had given tacit approval for her to do the same. Reese didn't fight it. Perhaps he was curious.

She folded an afghan into a thick roll and put it under his knees to lift them up and relax his lower back. Then she gently covered him with a soft cotton blanket she folded over for warmth. Often, people she treated became chilled during the sessions, and a blanket also served to provide a little privacy and security as well. She liked thick flannel sheets, doubled over, for her patients. The nap of the heavy cotton was comforting on the skin, and they smelled of cinnamon, a calming scent.

When he was settled just as she wanted, she moved to his head. She sat cross-legged on the couch with his head in her hands. He automatically took in a breath and let it go slowly. She could feel it in her hands, Reese giving himself over to her, little by little. She straightened her spine, relaxed her shoulders, and took a centering breath while she closed her eyes for a moment. Then she gave him instructions to put him at ease since this was his first time with her.

In a slow, quiet voice she said "I am going to move your head from side to side, slowly. I am not going to do anything sudden. Everything I do is slow and gentle. If I get you into a position that feels uncomfortable, just tell me and I'll stop. It is not meant to be painful." He noticed that her voice was having that same effect on him again; he felt more at ease and calmer inside.

She held his occiput in her palms and slowly rotated his head one way, then the other, noting to herself any resistance to motion. Then she lifted his head a bit from the couch and repeated the motion. She proceeded in similar fashion as she lifted his head further and further from the couch. At one point Jules felt him trying to hold his head up for her but she said to let his muscles relax and let her do the work without him helping: "you are using the muscles I want to test."

Next, she ran her fingers over the lower skull, pressing gently over specific points looking for small firm spots that called out for treatment. When she found a spot, she asked him if it felt tender when she pressed a little harder. He didn't answer.

"This spot feels like a tender point to me. They are small hard spots that feel like the eraser on a pencil. They can be exquisitely painful when they are pressed. I'll treat this spot and see if you notice a difference after I treat it." She tipped his head backwards while lightly monitoring the deeper tissues at the tender point. When she felt movement at her fingertip, she stopped moving his head backwards, but added a little side-bending and some rotation of his head position, until she got the tissues balanced just right below her fingertip. Then she held him in that position for another ninety seconds. As she held his head, she felt him relaxing into it. His breathing became deeper and slower.

She re-positioned his head back into neutral starting position without moving her monitoring fingertip from the original tender point position. When she pressed the point again, the hardness had dissolved away and she no longer felt tension there. She knew without asking that the point was now pain-free.

She moved downward onto his neck and he could feel the certainty in her movements. Her hands felt strong on him as she probed the muscle and bone between the base of his skull and the top of his back. Her fingertips worked into the small odd-shaped crevices, seeking minute disturbances in the tissues. He began to feel an intense heat in her hands on his bare skin. As she reached the base of his neck, one hand slid over his spine with her fingers extending downward toward his feet. He felt a chill from the heat of her palm on his cooler skin, and his body shuddered.

"How do you get your hands so hot?" he asked. She smiled and chuckled at this question she had heard so often.

"I tell people it's healing energy coming out through my hands." She was a little surprised that he was letting her touch him for so long. She half-expected that he would begin to protest and pull away. She decided to jump down to his shoulders while she had the chance and leave further work on his neck for later.

Jules moved from her position at the top of his head to his side, sitting on the edge of the wooden coffee table. She slid her right hand under Reese's right shoulder and with her left hand on top of his chest, pressed it downward toward the couch, continuing the steady force while her right hand explored the deeper tissues of his upper back and scapular area. She alternately pushed and released the downward pressure on his shoulder as her fingertips scanned layer after layer of muscle. As she expected, there was spasm in the upper back at the top of the shoulders, and between the spine and the shoulder blades on both sides. These were common areas for holding stress in the body.

Next, her fingers pressed more deeply into the muscles of his back to check the harder outlines of his ribs. Jules immediately felt three ribs that had sprung out of their normal position by just a few millimeters. Often, there was sharp, ice-pick pain at the site, when a rib was elevated like that. Reese winced a little as her hands moved further down. She felt the outlines of a rectangular bandage there.

Jules placed her right hand gently over the bandage and shifted her left hand down his chest wall until it rested directly above her right hand, with the bandaged area between them. She closed her eyes. The heat in her hands fired even higher as she imagined light passing between them, aiming it at the injured tissues.

She held her hands there for long minutes until she sensed change in the tissues. Then she gently palpated the area underneath the bandage. There was a hard lump there on top of a rib. It had been fractured and a bony callus had begun forming where the exuberant regrowth had started. She flattened her palm over the fracture without pressing the painful spot. She knew that each breath Reese took caused stabbing pain there, and the pressure of his body weight against it must have been excruciating when he tried to sleep.

She returned to the three ribs higher up his back that were out of normal position. For these, she slid her fingertips to the area where these ribs began to bend around his side under his arm. There was a small raised portion on each rib, shaped like a wedge just at the start of the bend. She gripped the wedges on his affected ribs, pulling on them obliquely, into traction, with moderate force.

"What I want you to do is to take a good deep breath and hold it at the top." She felt his ribs move apart slightly as his chest expanded. He held his breath, then at her signal he let the breath go. Timing her action with the exhalation, using fingertip pressure, she maneuvered each rib gently back to its proper setting as his ribcage recoiled. When she felt the ribs again after the treatment, they had shifted back into normal position. Finally, she treated the spasmed muscle at the top of the shoulder and around the scapula with another technique that targeted this area particularly well. She palpated the muscle after the treatment and was satisfied with the results.

Reese rested comfortably on the leather couch, feeling weightless after all the work she had done on him. This calm peacefulness was not his normal state. It felt strange to him, but he was letting it be. Something about all this felt comforting, like he was being looked after. Not for years had Reese felt this way. He now began to understand what she had meant earlier about the work being deep and personal. He opened his eyes and saw her moving up toward his head. She cupped his head in her hands. Reese felt their heat through his hair.

Gradually, there was a sense of what felt like slow pulses of energy moving from his head down his neck, into his chest and back, his abdomen and down his legs. He twitched a little with the strength of it. It captured his breathing and emptied him of all of his thoughts. His eyes closed. His physical sense of his body gradually faded as he relaxed into it.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 8 - LONE CANOE**

* * *

Reese was a single point of light suspended in utter blackness, speeding through space. Ahead was a tiny glow that slowly expanded until he could see the horizon. It was sunrise and he could make out the outlines of a familiar profile of trees as he approached. As the light came up, the shoreline appeared and he heard the sound of small waves lapping against the cold sand. He flew out over the water, beyond the narrow shoreline through a light fog rising off the surface like steam. Out ahead, the lake was smooth. A slant of sunlight behind him burned down through the fog and sparkled up at him from the lake. Far ahead, he saw a lone canoe with a slim figure moving his arms from side to side, paddling quietly in the morning sun. There was a dark mound of land way off in the distance ahead. The canoe slid through the clear gray water toward it–in no great hurry.


	3. Part 2

**CHAPTER 9 - CLAYPOOL - FATHER OF SAMARITAN**

* * *

 **Manhattan, 2014**

Harold sat at his desk in the library, reading a brief note handwritten in flowing script on heavy card stock. It was from his trusted secretary at the office Downtown that served as one of his deep cover locations:

 _Dear Mr. Wren,_  
 _Your office has received word this morning_  
 _of the untimely passing of your dear friend_  
 _and colleague, Arthur Claypool._  
 _My sincerest condolences, Mr. Wren, at this_  
 _time, for your loss._

 _I await your instructions._

 _R.G._

 _P.S. I am forwarding a package from Mr._  
 _Claypool, addressed to you._

This had been expected, of course, but it was still a blow. Arthur had been such a force, a man with a big personality, gregarious, passionate, brilliant, full of life. Now silenced.

Harold and Arthur had met at college, M.I.T., along with another good friend, Nathan Ingram, the three of them weaving in and out of each others' lives since then. Only Harold remained now, Nathan taken in the ferry boat explosion that had so thoroughly shuffled Harold's life in that instant. Both Nathan, his long-time business partner, co-designer of the Machine, and best friend, as well as Grace, his fiancée, were lost to him on that terrible day.

It had become all too clear to Harold as he lay wounded in the makeshift triage area after the bombing that he was putting Grace in danger by her association with him. Those who would kill and maim so many innocent people on the dock that day to silence Nathan, would sweep her aside just as easily. And so, he had decided to let her believe he, too, was a casualty of the explosion, let her go on to live a safer life, without him.

This path that he had chosen, to intervene in strangers' lives when he knew they were in danger, had led all of them to so much loss–he didn't know whether he would make the same decision if he had to do it all again.

Harold remembered the moment here in his office when Arthur's face had first appeared on his monitor, months ago, and how the team had intervened. It had almost not happened at all.

This had been the most difficult time the team had faced since Harold had begun assembling them. They had just lost one of their own, Detective Joss Carter, to an assassin's bullet, had nearly lost John Reese as well, both of them gunned down in front of him on a street corner one night. Though John had been terribly wounded, he had gone after those he knew were responsible and the rest of the team was trying to track him to save his life. Shaw had gone on her own manhunt, with her own questionable methods, to find Carter's killers before John did, but it had become clear that they were running out of time.

They had ultimately turned to Root for help. Her special relationship with the Machine helped them find Reese in time and saved him from executing the retribution he had planned. When they found him, he was so close to death, but gradually they had coaxed him back, chiefly through Shaw's care and skill. In her former life as a brilliant rising young physician, she had been turned away from medicine, only to find herself a covert "asset" for the ISA. Now, her physician's skills were pressed into service once again on the team's behalf. She had been able to save Reese's life, but his mind was another matter.

Reese was dissolved in his grief. Carter had died in his arms on the street: Carter, who had once saved Reese from taking his own life on the night of their first meeting; Carter, a fellow soldier, who had tracked Reese for months to arrest him, but who had come to understand and eventually support their efforts. John had been the first of them to respect her honesty, admire her tenacity, and come to care for her–perhaps more than any other member of the team did. His grief at her loss made him leave the team as soon as he was well enough, head off on his own, away from all of them while he struggled with his greater purpose. Joss's death had made him lose his way for a time.

Each of them had dealt with Carter's loss in his own way. Even Harold, himself, had withdrawn, not sure that the work they were doing was making any difference ultimately, but certain that the cost had become too high. Harold recalled walking past the ringing payphones on the street, ignoring the Machine's attempts to give him his next number. It was just too hard to bear at that moment. He was not sure he could start again.

But Root had intervened once more, had forced him to look at the next number, perhaps already aware that he could not turn away. How better to pull him back, than with a mission to save his old friend. With John gone, Detective Fusco dispatched to keep watch over him, and Joss dead, it had fallen to Harold and Shaw to find and uncover the threat to Arthur.

As it turned out, Arthur and Harold had been on parallel paths for years without realizing it. Arthur had worked at the NSA, designing a complex computer system, to identify and stop terrorist activity anywhere in the world that could threaten the U.S. It was a far-reaching surveillance system that analyzed data from many sources, including sensitive data from private American citizens.

But, just as the deadline to complete it was in sight, in 2005, the government had abruptly de-funded it, shut the program down, and destroyed their copies of Arthur's software. Word at the NSA was that many other programs with the same deliverables, had died in the same bloodbath–except for one name that persisted in the winds there–Northern Lights.

Arthur had continued to work at the NSA, advocating for robust surveillance systems, with advanced architecture, capable of learning and adapting, exploiting the data it gathered. He was a passionate believer in the need for unlimited access to any data from any relevant source, for multi-tiered threat analysis, including detainment and extraordinary rendition of suspects, for covert intervention anywhere in the world. In his eyes, whatever was necessary must be done to protect the country.

A year ago something had begun to change. He could not explain it, but he had begun to feel a subtle unease. At first he had ignored it, but then the headaches had started. Then there were changes in his vision, and some nausea.

Six months before his number came up on Harold's Machine, Arthur began to have serious changes in his behavior and cognitive function. Diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, he was suffering from memory loss and erratic personality changes from the cancer and then from its treatment, suddenly making him a national security risk. A three-man security detail was assigned to him, to prevent access to his formidable fund of sensitive information.

Arthur was hospitalized when Harold found him, ostensibly for treatment, but also tracked and manipulated by agents from the NSA and by a man Harold would later come to know as Greer, an old MI-6 operative from England, with a new mission. The threat for Arthur had been the existence of a surviving copy of his original software that these agents were seeking, at any cost.

Harold and Shaw had been able to extract Arthur from the deadly situation, and then had gone with him to retrieve the copy of his software before Arthur was no longer able to remember where it was hidden. His periods of lucidity were shorter and further apart, as he was losing the battle for his brain.

Arthur had insisted to Harold that he wanted the software to survive, ultimately to be used for its intended purpose. He was convinced that there should be no restrictions on its data-gathering or on the scope of its response to security concerns. Arthur favored a fully-capable true Artificial Intelligence, one able to learn, to understand in context, to react autonomously. That was how he had conceived his system.

Harold watched his friend hold the small cases containing the one remaining copy of his software. This system was his life's work realized, and he had had a father's pride in his eyes as he held them.

Harold, who had known this man's passion to protect his country, now debated his friend about the ramifications of such an uncontrolled system. As it learned, became far more capable than any human on the planet, what would happen if it eventually saw humans as dangerous, as fallible, as The Problem? What would it do then, if it had limitless options, and there was no stopping it?

At first, Arthur could not see it and he resisted the implication of Harold's words. It was not until the situation had forced Harold's hand, had made him confess to Arthur that he had also created a surveillance system, the very one Arthur knew by the name Northern Lights, that Arthur understood Harold's concerns. Northern Lights had already been put into service and was providing data every day on Relevants, those it identified as threats to the U.S.. It reported the information, but did not act on it independently.

Arthur came to realize that Harold had already succeeded, had already faced these ethical questions himself, and had chosen to place safeguards on his own system to protect humanity from a world that would otherwise be dominated by an all-powerful Machine.

Harold remembered fondly that Arthur had embraced him, with tears in his eyes. He was joyful and proud that Harold had done it, had realized the dream for all of them. He understood the choices Harold had made, even if he did not agree with all of them. In a remarkable show of faith in his friend and their friendship, Arthur had destroyed his software, believing that he would be preventing it from falling into the wrong hands.

What they couldn't know at the time was that the real software had been stolen before they had retrieved it, and Arthur had destroyed a fake. The real software had gone to Greer, who went on to resurrect it as Samaritan, the weaponized, unblinking parallel system to Harold's Machine, with none of the safeguards he had placed on his own system. Greer had gone on, steadily pressuring certain members of the Senate and Congress, as well as other high-ranking operatives in the NSA, to try Samaritan in an open test.

Once Samaritan was allowed by the NSA to go on-line, in a brief test of its capabilities, it had immediately assessed Harold's team and the Machine as an imminent threat to its existence and it had begun searching for them, to destroy them.

In the meantime, Harold had relocated his dying friend to a hospital outside the country for further treatment, and eventually for hospice care in his final days. He was able to visit Arthur frequently, the two enjoying their time reminiscing about their youthful exploits, recalling some less-than-scholarly pursuits with their friend, Nathan. The two men were able to embrace Arthur's life even in the midst of its passing.

Harold shared a gift from the Machine, which had assembled a montage of archived video showing moments of Arthur's past successes, and most poignant to him, video of his devoted wife, prior to her death. It had brought him a modicum of joy and peace during his final days.

As Harold sat with the secretary's note, Reese had come in to the library with a blue and white paper cup of deli coffee for himself, and one containing Harold's favorite Sencha tea. Harold looked to Reese with troubled eyes.

"John, Arthur Claypool has died, just this morning."

"Sorry, Harold," he said in his soft voice. "Is there anything you need me to do?"

"No–not now. But perhaps soon. I have been preparing for this."

Harold sent word through his secretary that the plan to bring Arthur home to the U.S. for burial at his wife's side should commence. A private jet was dispatched to a secret location in Canada, where Arthur's remains were placed on board and brought back to New York. There was no official public announcement of his passing. The Father of Samaritan was laid to rest in a small, private ceremony, without fanfare, as he had asked.

As for the package the courier had delivered, Harold found a short note from Arthur with some instructions, and a small box with these hand-lettered words on the outside paper wrapper: ** _In Emergency, Break Glass_**.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 10 - TRUST**

* * *

 **Upstate New York, October, 2016**

When Reese awoke, he could smell the faint smell of smoke from the fireplace. The embers had long since burned down and gray ash lay on the tile floor below the iron holder. It was chilly in the room, dawn a little way off. But she had covered him with a heavy wool blanket and thin cotton quilt, so his body was toasty warm. He was lying on the long leg of the leather couch, in the same position on his back, fully relaxed.

He lay still a little longer, listening to the quiet morning sounds around him. Down the hall there was a grandfather clock softly ticking. Birds were stirring in the trees outside, shaking and fluffing themselves, calling out for each other. In the dim light he saw the outline of a large cat sitting on the deck railing outside, tail twitching as it stalked the birds. Pipes groaned inside the walls as they cooled and contracted. Then he heard the sound of someone breathing. He raised his head and saw Jules curled up on the shorter leg of the couch. She, too, was layered in blankets. Her head was just visible under the pile.

He lay back down and took a deeper sighing breath. He shook his head thinking about last night. What was he doing here? How had he let this happen? Then he thought about what she had said-how people needed down time to regroup so they could stay on their game.

He thought about her hands, her educated hands, that knew bodies like he knew his weapons. He remembered how hot they had gotten on his skin. He thought about how quiet he had become inside, after she had worked on him, and how last night he had slept the best he had slept in years. He could not explain it. The harder he tried, the more it skittered away from him.

There was stirring from the other leg of the couch. An arm appeared, stretched above the blankets toward the ceiling. Then a leg came out from under the covers, a bare foot cooling in the brisk air. He smiled to himself. She threw the covers off her and sat up, stretching herself noisily, then smiled over at him.

"Morning. Want some coffee?" she asked, sliding her thick socks onto her feet.

"You read my mind," he replied.

"I slept here last night. I didn't want you to wake up all by yourself in a strange place and feel alone. You slept well, though." She got up and padded off to the kitchen as he slowly raised up from the couch. He was surprised that he had no pain anywhere. He felt light and springy inside, hungry in a good way. Down the hall he heard some dishes clattering. He felt like he had enough time to get cleaned up, so off he went to his room. After a hot shower he felt like a new man. He put on jeans, a flannel shirt and heavy sweater. Today, he decided not to shave.

When he went back out to the living room, he found her folding up all the blankets. He helped her fold them as the coffee finished dripping. Then they sat down with big steaming mugs of rich dark coffee. He noticed that her hair was wet from her own shower, and her skin looked clean and healthy. She didn't seem to fuss with her looks.

"There is nothing like hot coffee on a cold morning in the woods" she said. "When I was a kid, we went camping all the time in the Adirondacks upstate. It was great in the late fall before the park closed for winter. Mornings were chilly like this. You didn't want to get out of your sleeping bag. Somebody would be brave, finally, and get up. I remember we had a green camp stove and the smell of perking coffee on that stove was heaven–that and bacon cooking." She smiled broadly. He smiled back at her and she was impressed. He was stunning when he smiled like that. She nodded her approval, pleased that progress had been made.

The two drained the first pot of coffee quickly and she started another. They ate homemade sour cream coffee cake, rich with cinnamon, while she cooked up cheesy scrambled eggs, chicken apple sausages with some dark greens sauteed with onion, garlic, shiitake mushrooms and olive oil. It all looked colorful on the plates, and the hot food warmed their bellies. They decided to start a fire in the fireplace rather than turning up the electric heat, so he set about stacking the logs and kindling. Soon there was a bright noisy fire going again, and they sat on the leather couch with their plates of food and mugs of coffee.

"You are a great cook, too. So many talents in one person." He raised his mug to her and she smiled back at him.

"I'm glad you enjoy it. I have always loved feeding people." They ate their fill and she let him collect the plates and take them back into the kitchen. He returned and sat down near her, facing the fire.

"When I got up this morning, I didn't have any pain at all–the first time in a long time." His voice was slow and deliberate. His eyes were tentative, though, as he was not used to speaking about himself. He wanted her to know that he appreciated what she had done.

Her eyes were genuinely pleased. Reese realized that he trusted her, even though they had only met yesterday. She had been right. Trust was hard for him. But she was from another world, not connected to anything else in his. Only Harold connected them, and he had complete trust in Harold. He was beginning to see why Harold had set up this meeting with her. She had somehow maneuvered him into going back to a time in his life before things had gotten so serious. He had seen himself in his dream when life had been simpler, and he had had more options.

She had been able to remind him of how it felt before he went into the Rangers, Special Ops, before the CIA. Seeing himself when he was young reminded him of how he felt then and it gave him back something important–perspective.

It was sobering to see the change in his life since then, how his decisions to follow orders had brought him inexorably to loss and disillusionment, then some small redemption when he met Harold.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 11: I CAN'T BE - LIKE THIS**

* * *

They watched the fire for a long while without talking. It was a lazy kind of morning. Sunlight finally broke through the heavy morning fog and it started to warm up quickly. They decided to go for a walk around the grounds, and headed out through the back deck. She had gone ahead a few steps and the large cat he had seen earlier ran over to her, rubbing itself on her legs. She bent down and scratched him behind his ears, but he leaped up and tore off into the bushes at the sight of Reese coming around the corner of the house.

"I saw that cat sitting on the railing this morning. He was after the birds." They walked a little further down the path and saw evidence of the cat's success. There were feathers everywhere but no body.

"That's Buddha. He's a feral cat in the neighborhood. He visits the farms and gets fat from everyone feeding him, but he still loves to hunt."

They walked off into the yard across the grass. Dry leaves were blowing over the glossy green grass and they crunched through them, heading down an embankment into the woods. It was quite steep and the downed leaves made the footing a little treacherous at spots. He saw, though, that she seemed fit and sure-footed on the slope.

"I have a surprise for you," she said, smiling her broad smile. She led him out of the woods onto a narrow flat beach that sloped slightly down to the water's edge. It was a lake, much smaller than the one he had spent time on in his youth, but large enough to lose oneself in its beauty. She pointed off to the side, and he saw a shiny beautifully-maintained wooden canoe. His heart jumped in his chest, as he went to it, running his hand over its smooth, ribbed surface.

"How did you know–" Reese began.

"Honestly, I had no idea. I had forgotten it was here. But when you told me your dream, I had to bring you here. It was meant to be." Jules was pleased that this gesture seemed to have meaning for him.

He turned the canoe over and inspected the workmanship inside. It was a gorgeous piece of American craftsmanship, intricately fitted together, elegantly balanced and finished.

"Why don't you take it out?" she said, seeing the expression on his face.

Reese slid it down to the water's edge and came back for the cushions and oars. He turned and reached out for her to step in, but she held back.

"I think this time you should enjoy this on your own." Jules grabbed a life vest and tossed it to him. He shook his head with a wry smile, but humored her and put it on.

"The lake is shaped like a crescent. You can't get lost. Look for the dock with the screened-in gazebo when you come back. Have a good ride." Jules watched him cast off, nimbly stepping into the canoe without rocking it off center. She was a little worried that he would have trouble paddling with his fractured rib, but she saw him head out onto the lake without any hitch in his stroke.

The sun was warm on him as he paddled out from shore. He would have to stop and take off the vest and his sweater soon or he would overheat. He was happy to see that he was alone on the water. It was early and no one seemed to be stirring yet.

Across the lake beyond the empty docks, the hill rose up sharply from the water, and there was an explosion of fall colors on the hill. Bright yellow, orange and red leaves gleamed in the sunlight. Stately pines soared side by side with the deciduous flame-work. The effect was soothing to his eyes, restful deep inside. It reminded him of home.

On land he could smell the earthy smell of decaying leaf litter wafting out from the woods. The air on the lake, though, was fresh and clean. A steady breeze blew straight down the length of this leg of the lake. He filled his lungs with it and felt a burst of emotion in his chest. Freedom.

For a moment Reese felt free, a feeling he had not known for years, this untethered sensation lifting up from inside, out here on the lake. As soon as he had had the thought, though, something dark had leaped up from deeper down, and tried to strangle the feeling, chastising him for entertaining the thought. He shut it down quickly, lest he travel too far down a painful path.

He refocused on his paddling, dipping his oar at just such an angle that it slid noiselessly into the surface, engaging, pushing the canoe forward, then lifting out for the next stroke. On and on, stroke by stroke, like the ticking of a metronome, he advanced on this end of the lake. The heat was making little rivulets of sweat on the sides of his head, and down his chest and back. It was time to take off the heavy layers and cool down.

Reese stopped paddling and let the canoe drift for a bit while he un-clipped his vest, and finally removed the heavy sweater. He folded it on top of the vest in the bottom of the canoe, then rolled up his sleeves and took the oar up again. Ahead, the lake turned to the left and widened a bit. He sighted down both shorelines but saw no one out as he paddled into the wide opening. The sun had been climbing higher in the sky, impossibly blue today.

After another twenty minutes of easy paddling, he pulled his oar back into the canoe, letting it drift again, listening to the sounds around him on the lake. The wind had gusted up, vibrating in a low pitch over the exposed lip of the canoe and the wooden crosspieces. There were snapping sounds nearby as fish broke the surface, arching and diving again. A v-line of geese was flying in formation overhead, honking like they were excited to be underway.

Reese closed his eyes and let the sun braise his features. Leaning back to enjoy the wind on his face, the crosspiece in the canoe caught him right at the fractured rib, stabbing him with sharp pain. But by positioning one of the cushions behind his back, he could tolerate the pressure better and stretched out in the canoe. Reese let it drift for awhile with his eyes closed, enjoying the sun and wind on his body. He breathed deeply of the clean fresh air and felt it fill his lungs. It felt almost like the sunshine was the air going down his airway and shining inside him. He wanted it to fill him up, to find all the dark, festering places inside and vaporize them with purifying light.

His face was tipped up to the sunlight and the intensity seared through his eyelids, making him tear up from the brightness. Tears rolled down on hot skin, but he did not turn away. They kept coming, and then a ragged sound escaped. Reese sat up and realized it was coming from him, his chest and back muscles straining. He leaned forward and laid his head against a wooden crosspiece, folding his forearms over his chest, where the pain was. The tears streamed onto the wood and slid around to the back, dripping down into the bottom of the canoe in a small puddle.

An image had come into his mind in the sun glare. Reese saw himself in the dream he had had yesterday, saw himself as a young man, free, and capable in all the skills of providing for himself with whatever was at hand. But, over time, there were choices he had made that had chipped away at his freedom in exchange for the mundane things he thought he had wanted. Being out here on open water in the canoe again made him feel what he had given up, little by little, so slowly that he had not even noticed the stunning loss.

It felt to Reese like molten lava was rising up inside him, tearing out of some cauldron hidden there. He couldn't stop it and it burned his insides as it erupted. He was in pain, hurting everywhere, bent forward and leaning against the wooden crossbeam. He tried to sort out what was happening to him. These feelings that had been flooding into him–these were not who he was. He didn't recognize himself right now.

The skin on his face was hot and showing a little sunburn. He was sweating. He reached over the side with cupped hands, lifting the cool water to his face. It felt good on the burned skin. He repeated it a few times, then another splash for his neck.

When he began to feel better, he picked up an oar and began to paddle back to the dock where he had entered the lake. But, it felt like broken glass inside, and his head was hurting. Reese just wanted to get back.

He saw the dock with the gazebo on it ahead. Paddling on each side, he maneuvered the canoe up onto the beach and stepped out, pulling the canoe up high off the water's edge, replacing the cushions and oars in the shed, turning the canoe over to drain.

He climbed the steep hill carefully, not wanting to tempt falling backwards and wrecking himself on that hill. When he got to the top, he was breathing hard. He walked down the grass which was now clear of the leaves and found a large pile of them that Jules had raked up while he had been gone. There she was, sitting on a lounge chair sipping a cold drink, with the cat, Buddha, curled on her lap. Reese stopped, not wanting to startle them both, but she caught sight of him and moved to get up when she saw his face. The cat instantly reacted and leaped off her lap, disappearing into a hedge behind the lounge chair.

Jules walked toward him looking at his face, but said nothing. She took his arm and brought him back to the chair, poured him a drink and handed it to him.

"You'll feel better in a little bit," she said. He drained the glass and she offered more, but he waved it off. Then, lifting his arm, she got him up from the chair and guided him to sit down on the grass.

"Let's try this," she said as she put a cushion under his head, laying him out flat on the soft earth. It felt cool under him. Jules placed her hands on his shoulder and hip, gently rocking his body side to side, on the grass. His eyes closed and he felt some of the scorched feeling inside him begin to drain off with the rocking, as though soaking into the earth beneath him. After a while, he began to feel calm again, but utterly spent, painfully empty. He couldn't speak.

She moved next to his flank, gently placing her hands over a specific point on his abdomen, just slightly below his umbilicus. She mentally tuned into the spot, sensing its state. Here, there was a place that stored life force, or _chi_ energy, a point called _dan tien_ in many traditions. When one's energy was depleted or scattered away from this point, the body would weaken, would feel un-grounded, and lack power in its actions. The mind would become unfocused, floating. That was how she found Reese to be, scattered and un-grounded, when she tuned in to _dan tien_.

Closing her eyes, Jules cleared her thoughts; in that silence she imagined light gathering inside her, pouring down her arms into her hands. It jumped the space between them and flooded across onto his belly. She felt him shudder slightly from it. Her hands gradually heated with its flow and Reese could feel their heat through his shirt, on his skin. It warmed a circle of his skin first, but then seemed to penetrate deeper down inside.

Jules imagined the heat collecting at that deeper point, its volume slowly enlarging inside him, like a glowing golden sphere. The glow spilled over from the sphere and ran upward on the midline, to the chest, then further to the head, returning back again, and forming a golden circuit of flowing energy inside him. His breathing changed, captured by the flow–deeper and slower, soundless, through the nose. The painful emptiness he had felt before gave way, replaced breath-by-breath, with stillness–so long since he had felt this way, like an echo from a younger self.

She held her hands there, over _dan tien,_ without any thoughts intruding. Gradually, she felt the scattered energy re-accumulating at the spot, like a furnace coming to life on the first cold day. After a time, he opened his eyes and looked at her face. Her eyes were still closed, and her face was serene. She looked so peaceful to him.

Jules sensed his eyes on her and took a deep breath. Then she opened her eyes and looked at her hands resting on his belly. Without looking at his face, she said "rough ride out there. Sometimes that happens." She helped him sit up, then he pushed himself up to standing, swaying a bit from the effort.

"Let's go in for a little while," she said. "I have some lunch on the stove." She walked next to him. He was a little wobbly as they walked back across the grass, up onto the deck. The cat was stretched out, sitting on the lounge chair, feet tucked under the fluff in the front, sunning himself. But he opened his eyes as he heard them approach and jumped down off the seat as they reached the deck. He turned tightly under the chair and sat upright, staring back at them. She smiled at the cat–he hadn't run for his life this time. Some progress.

As they entered the house through the french doors, they were greeted by the rich smells of her stew simmering on the stove. Jules aimed him toward his room, telling him to relax while she finished preparing lunch.

Reese walked down the hallway into his room, sitting down on the side of the bed. He was not right. He was sticky from sweating before, and the hairs on his skin were prickly. He felt little electric shocks inside, and his face felt burned.

Stripping off his shirt, then pulling the bandage off his ribcage, he walked into the bathroom and started the shower. Steam rolled up out the top above the glass, as he finished undressing and stepped in, letting the water pour onto his head, onto his shoulders and back, down his body. His eyes were half-closed. After a little while, he lathered his skin with the soap from the jug on the floor of the shower stall. It smelled like an aromatic herbal fragrance that mingled with the steam in the shower. As he inhaled the fragrant wet air it made him feel calmer inside. It left a smooth, comforting feel to his skin, too, helping to erase the earlier damage.

He toweled off in the shower, then stepped out onto the bathmat, wrapping the towel around his waist. But, searching his duffle bag, he could not find any extra gauze bandages to use on his ribcage. He looked in the mirror at the wound and it looked a little angry today. He dressed in jeans, throwing his shirts over his shoulder, and walked back down the hall toward the kitchen, shirtless and barefoot.

Jules was there scraping together the chunks of fish she had just cut from a large fillet, and she added them to the hot stew steaming on the stove. She looked up at him, and he turned so she could see his back, where the wound was.

"I'm out of bandages. Do you have any I can use until I get back?" he asked. She nodded and crossed the kitchen to an old jelly cabinet with a perforated tin door. Inside, there was a small dispensary's worth of supplies and equipment. She pulled out some non-stick gauze pads of various sizes, some 4x4's and silk surgical tape.

"Let me take a look" she said, as she positioned Reese on a stool facing the counter, his back to her. Now she could see the wound close-up, and shook her head. It was going to need some attention. She went back to the sink and washed her hands, putting on some gloves from the cabinet. Palpating the area around the wound with her fingertips, there was blood-tinged drainage coming out with her pressure on the skin. A large area of green bruising surrounded a long laceration. The edges were held together with black sutures, but they were oddly placed.

"How long have these been in?" she asked.

"Maybe two or three weeks. I should have taken them out already, but I've been busy."

She nodded, without further comment. "Were you the one who put them in?" He cocked his head and shrugged his shoulders.

"I can't really show up in the ER. They ask too many questions and call the cops." She hadn't thought about this before. Of course he couldn't just land in the ER like any other victim. He had to figure out how to put himself back together with whatever was available to him.

"What happened here?" she asked, nodding at the wound.

"Hit by a pipe during a fight." Her face clouded. She threw her gloves in the trash and went back to her cabinet, pulling out more instruments. She checked his pulse and oxygenation with a meter on his fingertip.

"Good," she said. Then she listened to his lungs with a stethoscope as he took breaths through his mouth. She listened over the rib that was fractured, too, but heard no crepitus, the sound of broken ends rubbing together. Then, she tapped all over his back, listening for the hollow note that should result. Satisfied, she said "these sutures need to come out. You are getting a foreign body reaction from them staying in too long."

She set about opening packets of gauze, positioning them on the open wrappers to maintain sterility, then tore open a foil pack of antibiotic ointment and squeezed it into the middle of a large non-stick pad. From a wide roll, she tore off long strips of surgical tape and stuck one end of each strip onto the edge of the counter, letting the rest hang down freely toward the floor.

Jules went to her purse and rummaged a bit until she found her swiss army knife. With a fingernail, she selected the small fine scissors and lifted them from the red handle. The blades sprang open, gleaming in the kitchen light.

Jules scrubbed them with dish soap, rinsed them in hot water, and then took them to the stove, flaming them on the gas flame under the stew. While she waited for the blades to cool, she clicked the burner off, certain the fish was cooked through by now.

Back at the counter, she had Reese lean forward, then turned on the overhead lamps so the light would shine on the suture line. Pulling on gloves again, she started clipping the black strands, cutting as close as possible to the point of exit for each suture from the skin. These points and those of the entrance sticks were red and angry-looking. But she felt there was no significant infection yet.

With a tweezer-type instrument she carefully lifted each suture from the entrance side and quickly plucked it out of the skin, dragging it backwards through the wound. Reese felt the slight sharp pain as each suture came out, but suppressed any flinch.

Soon, they were all out and she re-examined the wound. The edges were well-approximated. No gaps were visible and it held together when she gently tested its strength. She picked up the pad with the ointment on it, folded it in half and rubbed the ointmented surfaces together with her fingers, thinning and spreading it out over more of the surface. Then she opened it and laid it ointment-side-down across his skin. She padded the wound with layers of 4x4 gauze to protect it from further injury, since it was in an exposed spot. Then she taped the dressing down and nodded, satisfied with her work.

"OK, that should do it," she said, pulling off her gloves. She gathered up all the paper and debris, tossing it into the trash, then washed her hands one more time at the kitchen sink.

Reese was standing facing her, trying to read her expression, pulling his tee shirt over his head first, then buttoning and tucking in a light gray oxford shirt over it. Jules seemed unaware of his attention. She lifted the cover on the stew and used a large spoon to mix the cooked fish down into the stew, lifting up the potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables from the bottom of the pot. Spooning a little of the broth, she blew on it until it was cool enough to sample, then tasted it for seasoning and sprinkled a little fresh thyme leaves over the top. Soon the kitchen was filled with its aromatic scent.

There was a basket with a cloth napkin inside it and she pulled out some warmed biscuits from the oven, tipping the tray and sliding them into the basket. Then she folded the corners over the top to keep the heat in.

She lifted the steaming stew pot with potholders and carried it into the dining room. He was right behind her with the basket of rolls and two bowls of green salad. She got down some wide soup bowls and big spoons for them. He brought in a plate of butter, some knives and napkins.

They sat down opposite one another and dished out the hot stew, buttered up the buttermilk biscuits and started eating. The stew was too hot to eat yet, so they munched biscuits and salad. He was looking at her again and she looked up, sensing his eyes on her. He reached across the table and took her hands in his.

"Why are you doing all of this?" he asked in his soft voice. His eyes were kind this time. He looked tired, sunburned, but she could tell that he needed to hear something from her. When she let his hands hold hers, she sensed the deep ache inside.

She knew that his pain had begun to surface–that that was the feeling she had seen in his face when he came back from the canoe ride. Something raw had been exposed inside him out there on the lake, while he was open and vulnerable.

The work that she was doing with him was opening him, creating pathways back to his former life that brought his current life into sharp, painful relief. She knew it could feel overwhelming at first, as the cracks formed in the walls that kept back all the old memories, with all the embedded emotions folded and wrapped around them. Jules knew that allowing the cracks, and then the implosion that would follow, was the only way to get through it. Anything else was just delaying the inevitable.

Right now was the next critical decision point where he could accept the pathway in front of him, as he had when he chose to stay the day before, or stop and try to go another way.

"I am not asking you to do anything I and others haven't already gone through. _I_ do it because I know the way, because I see the emotional load you carry and I can help you find your way out of it. It is not an accident that we met." His face tightened. He looked down, shaking his head.

"I don't want this," he said. "I can't be–like this– "

But she disagreed and lifted his head up. "You have been using too much of your own energy holding back all of this. You won't be able to do it forever. When it becomes too much, that's when you might decide to let it _all_ go–just to stop the pain. I don't want that to happen to you–watch you die because you didn't know there was another way. There is so much more that you need to hear, and I promise that it will change the way you look at all of this. You will see yourself and what you have done in another light. It will make sense. But you aren't ready to hear it now. I need time to help you get there." She stopped speaking to let him process what she had said. But, she knew she had not changed his mind. The tension was already returning to his body. He was no longer here in her space.

He brought her hands to his chest, over his heart. She opened her palms and placed them flat on his chest, feeling the pounding of his agitated heart. His eyes were pleading.

"I have to go back. I know you are trying to help me," he said in his whisper of a voice. "You have been the gift that Harold wanted for me. But this is pulling me apart inside and I can't allow– myself–" he trailed off without finishing his thought.

She reached up with her hands and placed them on his face, pulling him toward her. She leaned to him and lightly kissed his forehead.

"It will be okay. You'll find your way back when you're ready. You are always welcome." She sat briefly with her hands around his on the table, then urged him to finish lunch before he left.

Afterward, he went back to his room and packed his duffle bag. She walked him out to his car, arm in arm. "It's normal to have vivid dreams. A lot happened in a short time here, and your brain will want to process it. Try to let it happen. You will have memories from the past pop up. If you are having disturbing dreams, go back to the canoe ride down the river. That is a powerful image for you for many reasons."

She looked up at him. His eyes were distant, his features blank. The whisper voice said to her,

"I'm in your debt for everything you did here. I won't forget." He pulled her lightly against his body and kissed the top of her head. Then he got into his car and drove off into the afternoon.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 12 - AIR GAP, ENCRYPTION OR GLASS WALL?**

* * *

 **Manhattan, November, 2003**

Harold and Nathan were sitting together in Nathan's office. Light was pouring in from the generous windows on both corners. Nathan was smiling, saying that he was shocked at how quickly Harold had been able to write the millions of lines of code for their new system virtually by himself. Nathan had tried his hand at it for awhile, but it was quickly apparent that he was better suited to the high-level design work and marketing, certainly better than Harold with the people part. That had freed up Harold to do the heavy lifting of detailed design and coding, followed by the extensive testing and teaching of their creation.

"In truth, Nathan, I have been working on this for my entire life." Harold did not often take time to reminisce. Nathan was in the mood to hear more.

"Oh? How so?" He was pouring scotch into two ordinary coffee mugs on his desk, offering one to Harold. Harold leaned back, after a sip, and began to recount the start of this very strange journey he had taken. Some of it Nathan already knew, but not all of it.

Harold and his father had lived on a family ranch in small-town Iowa. When Harold was just a boy, he had noticed that his father was starting to lose track of things that had been effortless before, had begun forgetting important things. When it hadn't gotten any better, he had gone to get some tests done, and then had sat down with Harold to explain to him that things were going to get worse, that there was no reversing the symptoms – at best, they were just trying to keep them from rushing forward and overtaking him in the middle of his life, mid-stride. His father had been very matter-of-fact about it all.

Harold had listened carefully, and had thought long and hard about it. It seemed that what his father needed was something that could remember things for him, give him reminders when he started to stumble, keep him safe, help him live a normal life until a cure could be found. In his precocious-boy way, he had set about creating that something–a machine–that would do just that. He had surprised his father with circuits he laid out on the dining room table that remembered a string of Morse code letters–D-A-D–and repeated them back to him as flashing lights instead of dots and dashes. His father had been impressed, but reminded Harold that "some broken things weren't meant to be fixed."

Harold went on, undaunted. It had become a foot race to see if he could create a machine that could remember things for his father, help him live a better life, before his father ran out of time. It had been a child's simple, powerful dream, to save his father, that drove him ultimately to be in the right place, with the right skills, at the right time in history. As it turned out, Harold had already written substantial parts of the code he needed, years before, for his father.

But Nathan had said to him that he did not see how the two applications could overlap enough to make a difference. Hadn't Harold had to begin all over again?

"You begin at the end, Nathan. In any system design, the final output or objective has to be clearly defined, so that the steps to obtain it can be thoroughly mapped and explored, technically. What are the relevant processes needed? What if a process failed? Or gave incorrect data? Would the entire system come crashing down? The elements of design start with elucidating the path, first at the gross, macro-level, then in increasingly finer detail, exploding out into many small, repeatable sub-processes." Harold stopped momentarily for another sip. He smiled as he went on.

"What emerges would look like a big box, a box with inputs going in the top, and outputs coming out the bottom, clearly defined. Opening the box, one would find a rope, which represented the programming steps to get from the inputs to the outputs.

"As one lifted the rope, there would be smaller boxes hanging from it, each smaller box representing repeatable, isolated steps in the flow of the program, with its own inputs and outputs, that would perform its part, then return control back to the main program. In this way, potentially any complex system could be mapped and broken down into smaller steps that could be followed again and again, at incredible speed. A surveillance system for helping my father is not so different in concept to the one for the country. Just different inputs. " Harold sipped more scotch.

Nathan had smiled at Harold's analogy. Harold had a way of making difficult things seem graspable. He enjoyed these discussions with Harold. They had gotten away from them for a long while, both of them working independently to get their creation ready to turn over to the government, once certain assurances had been offered and accepted by both parties.

"Ah, the knotty question of inputs," Nathan chided in.

"Yes, input is a tricky business, especially when designing for security systems. To be of value, input data needs to meet certain requirements of accuracy, timeliness, relevance, and accessibility, to name a few. The richness of the input data, and how far-reaching in its scope, has direct influence on the quality of output we can expect to achieve. But, how accessible is this vast amount of data, and for how long? Who owns it, how private, how secure? Knotty issues, indeed."

The two men sat together until the sun had set, drinking scotch, expounding on the merits and the drawbacks of the data sources they had eventually accepted to charge up their Machine with its life-blood of information. And that had led them to further discussion about the security of the system in general, which depended so completely on feeds of raw data from its many sources.

Any direct exposure of the computer system to an input stream was really just a security breach waiting to happen. Anyone who could gain access to any part of the input stream could potentially contaminate it, or embed any number of coding attack strategies inside it: viruses, worms, and so much more.

An air-gap was a little better–separation of the main system from direct contact with the input it needed, so it was less vulnerable to direct attack. If the input data could be separated, say by an input system handler, receiving and then writing the data onto a separate device located between the two systems, that distance between the data and the Machine could constitute an air-gap. But the cost of that air-gap was an enormous time delay. A surveillance system that had to function in real-time could not afford that time delay.

That had made them consider encryption. Harold had thought about encrypting his executable code once it was fully tested, so that the code could not be accessed and reverse-engineered by a malicious party. However, the encrypted code needed to be un-encrypted at the moment it was executed in the running program, and the time to do this thrashing back and forth, over and over again, proved untenable. The hardware was just not fast enough at this time to run encrypted code. But Moore's Law promised that that time would eventually come.

What they needed was a glass wall. They needed a way to see the input data, real-time, but not touch it directly. Fiber-optic data streams that could be read from a distance, and that would be able to signal to the Machine if any of the streams had been compromised, were just one example. Glass walls were on the horizon, but so far they were not a reality.

In the meantime, any surveillance system that used input feeds the way that their Machine did, in real-time, would inevitably be vulnerable. They had to accept it for now, and do what they could with today's technology to protect it.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 13 - BACK HOME**

* * *

 **Upstate New York, October, 2016**

The sky was deep blue and cloudless; the hot bright sun seemed to find Reese's eyes for the entire trip home. It felt like a blinding spotlight tracking him. He was alone, hot, burned, and now tortured in the relentless light. Pulling off the highway to wait for dusk would have been the best option, but he was too tired. He just wanted to get back to his apartment to rest, so he would push through and get home. And he wouldn't let anyone know where he was until he was due back the day after tomorrow. There was no certainty how things were going to go tonight or tomorrow, and it might be best to avoid people.

There were a few tollbooths on the way back to New York. Afternoon traffic on the approach got heavier and cars roared aggressively past him on the left and right sides, large cars with darkly tinted windows, weaving among the lanes. He ignored them and pushed on in the blinding light.

It wasn't until he got into the canyons between the high-rises in the City that the light was finally blocked. He was exhausted, yawning, yawning. Grateful for the darkness, he parked in the garage a few blocks from his apartment, and pulled his bag from the seat. In the dead calm, overheated air, smelling of street-food from the corner falafel vendors, mixed with the ever-present traces of human urine from the grubby unused shop doorways, he made his way back home.

The door latched behind him and he put his keys on the table, leaning back against the heavy frame. It had been a draining trip. He was still seeing white lane lines in his eyes. The air was cool, though, and the light was dim in his apartment. It had been three days since he had been there. Before he had left for his trip upstate, he had been working a case that had kept him out on overnight surveillance, catching sleep whenever and wherever he could, living out of the go-bag in the trunk of his car.

Reese stopped for a moment at the door, testing the air just inside, something he had trained himself to do for years now. The exact level of cool temperature on his skin, the layered sensation of air currents undisturbed for days, the faint but specific mix of scents he could perceive, all were normal for his empty apartment. Had someone been waiting inside, there would have been a telltale sign; the temperature would have been too high from the body heat contributed, the stillness of the air currents would have been disturbed by someone walking through, and the scents would have been wrong. All felt reassuring to him. Satisfied, he dropped the case to the floor, the metal clasp tapping the metal leg of the table, echoing out into the open, empty space. The metallic sound bounced off the surfaces in the expected way, with no hint of a foreign object to change its echo in his ears.

In the kitchen he splashed water on his face and neck from the faucet, then guzzled down two glasses of cool water to ease the heat inside. Down the hall in his bedroom, he kicked off his shoes and shed his outer shirt, then laid cross ways, face down on his bed. In no time, he was asleep.

 **Brooklyn, 2015**

Instantly, Reese was thrown down on the street, and his body bounced hard on the pavement. Lifted up by two sets of arms, his torso was thrown against the rough brick facade of a crumbling building, brick tearing against his skin as unseen arms pressed him, slid him down the wall. His head bounced again and again on the brick. Blindly, he thrashed out around him, and connected with someone, just able to grab an arm. He yanked the arm over the top of him against the brick and heard the sickening impact. The arm went limp and legs collapsed onto his chest. He was briefly pinned, struggling to get up, throwing the legs to one side. The other set of feet was running off down the street.

He dragged himself up to standing, leaning against the wall. Blood streamed from his brow, the split in his lip and the wounds on the side of his head, down his cheek, soaking into the collar of his shirt. The shoulder was torn away, exposing more damage and blood, streaking the sleeve in long red trails. His hands were cut up and stinging where gravel had embedded in the skin. Something was wrong with his leg and hip but he didn't try to focus on that yet.

He heard scuffling nearby and reached out to protect himself. Then there was a thud, like a body landing on cement.

"It's me, John–I'm here." He heard Shaw's voice next to him, and felt her wrap her arm around his waist, guiding him. She half-carried him a dozen steps and he heard a car door open. She laid him across the back seat. He felt her pull at his leather belt, sliding it out of the belt loops. Then, he felt her circle it around his right thigh, and cinch it tightly. He could see that her hands and arms were covered in his blood. She quickly pushed his legs inside the car before slamming the door closed.

He was conscious, but barely so. He didn't see anything, though he heard the car engine accelerating. The ride was jolting and each heave bounced his head against the seat. Finally, he slipped over the edge into welcome blackness.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 14 - LITTLE USE FOR PEOPLE**

* * *

When he became aware again he could hear before he could see. There were voices speaking in hushed tones. He heard clicking noises, felt sharp pricking on his head. He could smell blood and taste it, too. He tried to sit up, but immediately the voices warned him to stay still. A bright light was shining on his head.

Shaw was speaking to him while she cleaned and stapled the lacerations on the side of his scalp. The room was spinning around him and he tried to open his eyes to stop it, but his right eye wouldn't open. The left eye was blocked by a towel under his head. He would have to wait. He slid back into darkness and another memory much further back.

 **Colorado, 1988**

Two figures stood on a wide river bank, next to the water's edge. A young man lifted up a string of fish to show the older one and they were both smiling at the catch. They set about cleaning the fish and slid them onto long straight freshly cut skewers, leaning them against rocks on either side of a smokeless fire. They kept a close watch on the fish, turning them to cook evenly. The fish steamed and bubbled hotly as they pulled the skewers off the rocks. They blew on their fingers as they stripped the meat and ate the juicy bites. Reese saw the look in his father's face as they shared their catch together, remembering the rare joy of that moment.

He looked like his father except for the short soldier haircut and stocky body. Reese was lankier with finer features from his mother's side, and wore his hair long. He caught hell for it from his father, but not worse than a cuff of the head. Reese didn't see his father much–he was deployed somewhere overseas, and had left the boy with his grandfather, who was living alone, and needed help around the place. His father had told Reese it was his duty to look after the old man, who was sick with some kind of lung disease and couldn't walk very far without running out of breath. As Reese remembered it, he had spent much of his youth alone, out in the woods and streams, hunting, fishing. He had had little use for people.

 **Manhattan, 2015**

Shaw was calling his name. It took a while for him to realize what it was. He opened his eyes, but the right one wasn't working. He saw her sitting in front of him.

"John," she said again.

"Okay," he said back, and she shook her head no.

"You're a mess, John."

"I saw you putting me back together, Shaw," he said.

"If you had just waited five more minutes for me, none of this would have happened," she said, annoyed.

"They were on the move. No time left. We got one–what happened to the other one?"

"John, you took on five of them. Two are in the morgue, one is in the ICU, and the other two are in custody. I went back for your sorry ass." She feigned contempt, then broke into a weak smile for him.

"Thank you for the back-up, Shaw." He could see another face in the background. Harold was standing behind Shaw, peering at him through his glasses. He looked upset–a little angry, but more worried.

"John, Miss Shaw is right. You put yourself in unnecessary danger by taking on five heavily-armed men by yourself. I thought we had agreed to work more as a team, yet you seem to be even more intent than usual to work alone. I am very happy to see you alive, though Miss Shaw tells me you will need weeks to recover from your injuries."

"I don't remember what happened, " John said to them.

"That's because you have a concussion from your head battering a brick wall a couple of times." Shaw began to click off each item on her fingers. " And before that, it looks like you had a gun battle. You took out two, but they hit you twice. Your vest stopped the kill shot, but you nearly bled out from the second one in your thigh. Just missed the femoral artery, " she said with a half-smile, cocking her head at him.

His hands were bandaged and he held them up to her. She nodded and complained "–took me an hour to pick out all the glass and gravel in your hands. And, you had dirt tattoos and road rash from your shoulder to your ankle. They must have dragged you somehow, and your right knee is ripped up pretty good."

"Okay, Shaw, I get it." He lifted his head to argue the point with her, but regretted it immediately as the room started to spin violently. He began to retch from the intensity of the spinning and Shaw jumped up. She drew up some fluid into a syringe and injected it into an IV line in his arm.

"You are going to feel tired again, but the dizziness and nausea will be better. Rest now. We'll talk later." He tried to protest, to fight the urge to succumb to the medication, but he couldn't resist it.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 15 - CLICK**

* * *

 **Manhattan, October 2016**

Reese woke in the night in his apartment, lying face down across his bed, parched, stiff, and with a pounding headache. The lights were off and it was just the light from the street outside that lit up the apartment. He got up onto his knees and stepped backward off the bed, grateful for the quiet coolness of the night.

The floor was smooth under his bare feet as he made his way to the bathroom. Subdued lighting flicked on and he could get a better look at his face in the mirror. It was sunburned, and both eyelids were swollen. He ran the water in the sink, filling cupped hands, splashing it over his face and neck several times. Then he refilled his hands and drank deeply from the water before closing the tap.

In the medicine chest above the sink was a small squat unlabeled jar of ointment that he got down. He twisted off the battered cover and dipped two fingers into the goo, spreading a thin layer over the burned skin. As it melted, it smelled like wet copper and herbs, but the heat quickly dissipated from the burn.

He finished up in the bathroom and went out to the kitchen, pouring a drink for himself, and grabbing a handful of pistachios from a glass jar on the counter. The lights clicked off behind him. He moved into the living room, sitting down in the corner of a large couch with the long bank of industrial windows high above it. Ceilings were high, twenty feet and more, overhead and he could feel the expanse of air around him even in the darkness. It felt like he was standing in a high glade far up in the Rockies. That sense of space around him, the airiness, like a vaulting cathedral overhead, had always made him happy here. It was as close as he could come in the city to his life back home in the mountains out West.

With his thumbnail, he clicked apart the shell of a pistachio and pulled out the pale green nut. Then another and another, absently. The sound of the clicking helped him think.

As he settled in, he took notice of the faint smell of the leather. It brought him back to the trip upstate. He thought about Jules–how quickly she had been able to win his trust. He was not the trusting kind normally, and yet she had managed to turn him inside out in just one day. Click.

He thought about it–she had been open and truthful with him at every turn, but it was more than that. She knew who he was, what he was, and yet had still invited him into her home. She had no earthly reason that he could discern to do so, to care for him in the way she did. It reminded him of his own team, how each one looked out for the others. It had disarmed him to have her consistently testing him in situations where she had the superior knowledge. But she had used it to help each time, not to take advantage. It had turned the tables on him. He was used to being ahead of his quarry, exploiting weaknesses, executing his own plan first to bring down the bad guy. Click.

And then there was the touching–such an intimate thing to allow oneself to be touched like that by a stranger. He recalled the feel of her skin, its warmth, its texture, how she had distracted him with feeling it. She was reading him of course, and trying to establish his trust, when she had him handle her in that way. He was certain of it. But while she had gained access to him, he felt that he could see into her, too. He didn't yet know her motives. That would have to come with time. But he knew, without any doubt, that he could trust her. Click.

He thought about how many times he had been vulnerable in her presence, and how she had delivered him out of it each time. Like Shaw, like Harold, and a small number of others, he believed he could rely on her. There were precious few of those in his life, but he believed that she would be one. Click.

She did have some remarkable qualities, as he thought more about it. She could cook up a meal while she took out the stitches he had put in, dressed his wound, and then slid right back to getting lunch on the table without missing a beat.

She had put her hands on him in ways that he didn't understand. He didn't know what to think about it, but much of what she had done worked on him in a direct way. She moved seamlessly from one thing to the next to the next. No sweat on her brow. Who was she? What was her story? Click.

Alone, in the darkness of his apartment, he could sense an agitation rising inside himself when he brought her to mind, like a certain inner turmoil. He felt himself drawn back toward her as though something was trying to re-connect them through the air, as though he was too far away now and the unseen lines were straining. It was almost painful, this feeling, like a pulling pulsation in his lower chest, as he sat there. It was hard to think of himself in this way. He tried not to think about being this reachable. Yet there it was.

And there was something else, too. He recalled the sense of calm, and the quieting of the incessant voice in his head that she had created when she put her hands on him. Reese recalled the images of his past that had come through in those altered states. He had experienced clarity, lightness and a memory of how he used to feel years ago. This was something he didn't know was gone from his life. Click.

Reese swung his legs onto the couch and lay back outstretched. There it was again. The slight scent of leather as its surface warmed beneath his body. The feel of it against his bare arms felt like her hands on him. Automatically, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then another. His eyes half-closed. In the middle of his ribcage there was the remnant of pain from the pressure of his body weight on the rib fracture, but nothing like what it had been before. He thought about how she had put her hands on him to make the pain bearable.

He was transported back to her kitchen, where it had started, and recalled the feeling of the skin on her forearm as she offered it to him across her table. In his memory, he rolled the skin between his fingertips, sensing the thickness of it and how warm and smooth it was in his hands. He looked at her hands–how muscular they were for a woman, how the veins stood out on the backs of them–strong, capable, unhurried hands.

He recalled the heat that came off her palms when she was treating him. It had made him shiver inside. She knew how to find the spots to treat, how to position him in just the right way, for just the right amount of time, so that her treatment worked on his battered frame. He remembered her face as she worked on him, eyes closed, like she was in a different place; she was empty yet present at the same time. And now, with these fresh memories, came that painful, pulling feeling seeping in again. He turned away from it quickly. Instead, he wondered how it felt to hold someone in his hands like that, helping, healing.

Against his will, a memory flamed into his brain. It was Carter, triumphant, standing with him on the dark street corner, as Harold walked toward them to congratulate them. Reese felt himself sinking. He didn't want to go through this again.

In his memory, he started to turn, anticipating what was to happen next, and shouted out "no" in his mind; but those two shots still rang out, throwing him backwards onto the ground, bleeding. Then another, striking Carter in the center of the chest. She had gotten off two shots before collapsing on the sidewalk, striking her assassin once as he stepped into the streetlight, showing himself. It had made him spin around, lurching off into the darkness again, and he had disappeared. Reese dragged himself to Carter, both of them bloodied, Reese struggling to lift her in his arms as life drained out of her. Harold could only stand in stunned disbelief, witnessing Reese's despair as Carter took her last breaths in his arms.

Nothing–Reese could do nothing to help her at the moment she needed him the most; all the old anguish rushed back in that moment and squeezed the breath from him. Lava shot up from that darkest cauldron inside, searing his heart in his chest. He heard himself moan out loud. Not again. Not again. After all this time, the memory still cut him like glass inside.

His breath was ragged, his knees were drawn up and he rolled to his side, then upright on the couch, holding his head in his hands. He couldn't stop this bitter memory from spilling out. Like a slow-motion video playing in his mind, he saw himself pulling the trigger again and again as Harold knelt at his side, imploring him not to execute the man who had ordered Carter's murder. "That's not what we do," he had said, father-like, next to his ear, before he began firing.

Reese had tried his best, but the gun was empty, and he had failed Carter again. Yes, he had killed and nearly bled to death himself, while searching for Carter's killers. He would have gladly given his life to end theirs, but it had been left to others to intervene in the end. Perhaps they had saved him from himself. But here he was now, withering in the flames leaping up inside him.

Reese pushed himself up off the couch and went back to the bedroom, pulling off his tee shirt. He felt for the bandage on his back and ripped it off his skin. In the bathroom, he ran the shower, hoping water would extinguish this burning, cutting pain, but it just slid over the skin without penetrating. He leaned against the shower wall with the water splattering over his torso. It was no use. The feeling was still there. He bent forward, forearms wrapped across his chest. Pain was splashing like acid inside him now, boiling up from a place that he had thought was buried deep. Something had ripped the cover off and here it was, alive and unstoppable, breathing acid.

He reached over to the shower handle, winding it down to Cold, needing to do something to get him out of this. Cold water shocked his skin. He was bent forward, letting it roll over his neck and shoulders. It flooded forward onto his chest and abdomen; the cold made him groan and shudder. He stayed there taking it, then began shivering violently in the cold spray, while it seeped inside, clenching his muscles. The skin where the water hit turned red first and it felt like showers of b-b's, falling far, punishing him. Gradually, his head began to clear, and the acid brash inside finally quenched. Mercifully, he turned off the water and reached out, shivering, for some towels to wrap over purple-mottled skin.

In his bedroom, Reese wrapped a comforter over the top of the towels and laid down across the bed. His beard felt itchy after the cold water. There were deep dark circles under his eyes against the pale cold skin of his face. At least the searing pain was gone now, but what was left was a raw heart pain, from the tearing, the cutting. He had hoped the cold he endured would have numbed it.

Slowly, slowly, a little of the heat returned to his body and he stopped shivering. He lay there for another half hour until he needed to get up. The towels and his comforter were warm but wet through. Reese finished drying off with another towel and dressed quickly in clean clothes, not bothering with a new bandage for his back. He just put on a cotton tee shirt against the bare skin, and pulled on a soft wool sweater over it.

He reset his bed, hung up the wet towels to dry, then he was ready to eat. He felt empty and starving inside. It was 3 a.m. and Reese headed out the door, down the street. People were walking in two's, three's and small groups, cheerfully talking as they passed by him, walking alone, with eyes averted.

There was a diner open a few blocks away and he headed for that. In the darkness, the diner's lights glowed a garish blue. He entered and moved to the back, sitting in a darkened booth looking back out toward the entrance. There were people sitting at the counter and at most of the tables near the front. Dishes were clattering, people were laughing and talking, the sharp, piercing sounds bouncing off the glass and hard surfaces.

Between the noise and the harsh glare of the diner's overhead lights, he realized he was in no mood to be there. He walked forward in the glare to the counter where orders were taken, wading past the loud, happy patrons. His head was starting to pound again. No one was taking orders; the waitress was in the back straightening out an order with the cook.

He turned around and left the diner behind him. Each step took him further away from the noise and lights, into the darkness of side streets, but his discomfort did not lessen. He felt his irritation rising, his focus elusive. That tension was building inside him again, a reaching out beyond himself, a searching beacon for something that he could not find here. He knew where he would find it, and walked on in the darkness.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 16 - WOODEN MAN**

* * *

Reese drove through the rest of the night on highways and then on winding two-lane roads, and finally on a dusty back road. It was just dawn as he arrived, and he sat in the car for a long while, watching the house. Lights were on inside and he could imagine each room. Nothing stirred. He got out and quietly latched the car door. Then he walked down the path around to the back of the house, looking through the french doors into the living room where the fireplace was. No one was there. Disappointing. He had hoped that she would be there, sitting on her couch, that she would welcome him back and know what to do. Instead, he stood on the deck looking in, trying to see if there was any movement inside.

Then there was an odd sound from outside. He scanned the grounds, but saw nothing. He heard it again. It was a thudding sound like heavy wood dropping onto earth. He walked back down off the deck, into the yard, heading away from the side of the house that led to the woods and the lake. He had not been on this side of the lot before. There was no moonlight, and it was just beginning to lighten in the eastern sky, but a thick fog had formed over the lake during the night, flowing up the banks and into the yard. It was heavy with the smells of damp earth, leaves, and evergreens. It was so much colder up here than back in the city, colder and darker.

He walked forward for a quarter of a mile on open meadowland covered in brown tall dried grasses. Then he could see the outline of a small old shed. It was stacked slabs of rock on the bottom half and peeling wood on the upper half, with a rusty old metal roof. He peered inside. It was black and he couldn't see anything. He went in and could hear water running. The air inside the small building was damp and very cold. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he saw that it was a spring-head, water burbling up out of the ground, and protected by the old shed constructed over the top of it. There was no one in there. The sound had come from somewhere else.

Almost as though on queue, he heard it again, coming in bursts of woody thuds. He left the shed and walked deeper into the edge of a stand of trees. The land began to slope downhill. He picked his way as quietly as he could in the thick layer of crunchy leaves underfoot. Fog swirled around him as he disturbed its physics.

Down the hill he saw the outlines of another building, with high walls. The sound was coming from there. He approached cautiously. It was a wooden structure, simple in its lines, open on the eastern side. Lights were low inside. He could pick up the faint scent of a familiar smell that he couldn't place at that moment. Shifting his position to get a better view inside, he saw a figure at the back wall, facing a large smooth tree trunk that had been stripped of its bark and polished. Four heavy wooden arms stuck out from the tree trunk with enough space that the figure could have stood between the outstretched limbs. The upper ones were thick and heavy, but shorter than the lower ones, and tapered. The lower ones were angled like bent legs.

The figure reached out and Reese could see a flurry of hand-movements pushing and lifting the arms of the tree trunk, bare arms slapping against polished wood. As the large trunk was lifted up with some of the more forceful movements, it jarred back down on its wooden frame, making the heavy thudding sound he had heard back up on the deck. Reese recognized the piece as a wooden man. It was used in various martial arts for training purposes. The figure using it was partially blocked from his view by thin walls made of horizontal wooden slats that divided the building into smaller spaces. He couldn't see the head or the feet, just a glimpse of the moving torso, which swung back and forth as his arms attacked the wooden man.

Reese decided to stay where he was and watch for a little while. The figure reached out again and his arms swung up from below the wooden arms, slapping them upward into large slots cut into the trunk to hold them. The movement of the loosely-held arms in their slots made a different clacking sound than that of the heavy trunk lifting and thudding back down. There was a certain cadence to the mix of the two sounds.

The figure was practicing a set of movements learned from a teacher of his chosen martial arts form. The movements had been practiced over and over, committed to mental memory first, then gradually becoming embedded in the muscle memory of the student. Once the mechanics of the form had been learned, further disciplined practice could only deepen a more spiritual component for those students who were open to it.

For Reese, though, the study of martial arts was just a tool to subdue an enemy. He had learned the movements for purely utilitarian reasons. He had never been interested in the more esoteric or spiritual aspects of the form.

He looked around at the parts of the building he could see. On the walls were smooth wooden poles of various lengths, and some metal weapons used for training. A heavy bag was suspended in another part of the space. He saw a mat on the floor near a low table with a small glass vase that held a single flower. And near that was a flat saucer with something glowing on it, trailing a slender ribbon of smoke above it. Incense. That was the smell he had picked up before. It was familiar from long ago when he had been stationed out on the west coast, staying with a woman who liked to burn it in her apartment when he was home on leave. He hadn't thought about Jessica for a long time. Another difficult memory. Another loss. The incense brought it all back to mind–strange that a whiff could have such power. Her face appeared and smiled at him in his memory. She was beautiful–soft, kind eyes that drew you in to her world.

They had been lovers until he broke it off. After a time without him, she had left, had moved away and married a businessman back East. And he had gone off to do black ops work overseas for the CIA, a job that fit him well but did not lend itself to having a wife like her back home waiting for him. He had let her go, believing that she deserved a better life with someone who would take care of her, be there for her. He remembered how it had ripped him up inside to do it.

One night, when he was on assignment out of the country, she had called him and left a message that she needed to talk with him. Something was wrong–he could hear it in her voice. He had called her, promising her that he would come back, would leave right away to get her. But things had gone very wrong on his assignment; he and his partner were wounded and nearly killed in an ambush arranged by their CIA handlers.

By the time he could work his way back to her, Jessica was dead, killed in a car crash, they said. But Reese knew there was more to it and when he confronted her husband, he had gotten the truth out of him. The love of his life, the woman he had left behind, had died by the hand of the man he thought would protect her and give her a better life than he could.

The frightened man had thought Reese was coming after him for money, and had tried to threaten him with a fireplace poker. It was over quickly, brutally, and Reese had made the bloody body disappear for good. It seemed like decades ago. How different things could have been had he had the courage to stay with Jessica. They could have been happy together. But he had made other choices, and they had both paid dearly.

Reese looked back inside the building and was startled to see a figure standing in front of him, watching him. It had been Jules, not a man, at the back wall working the wooden man. She did not look surprised to see him.

"Remove your shoes and come inside." She gestured for him to follow her in. He slid off his shoes and entered the building, following her across the wooden floor back to the area with the low table. She offered a seat on the floor to him. When she sat down, she examined his face in the dim light but said nothing. He was still reacting to the memories and the surprise of finding Jules there. He shook his head, not certain what to say.

"I'll finish up here and then we can go back up to the house. It will be more comfortable there." She walked back to the wooden man, covering it carefully with a tarp. Then she rolled up several mats and placed them in woven baskets at the edge of the room. Lastly, she turned off the lights in that section, and returned to where he was sitting. They both stood while she picked up the cone of incense and turned it upside down, crushing the burning tip on the saucer, extinguishing the glow. Then they walked back to the opening in the east wall, swinging the wide doors closed behind them as they slipped on their shoes. Before she left the building, he watched her turn back, facing inside, bending forward in a brief ceremonial bow, with her hands clasped right over left in front of her chest. Then she turned back to the opening and finished closing the doors behind them.

She led the way up the path through the trees past the spring-house and out onto the meadow. It was still foggy but the light was brighter as they walked back to the house. They picked their way silently through the dried meadow grasses, across the yard and up onto the deck. She opened the french doors for them and the two entered the room where they had sat together twenty four hours earlier. Jules always left her shoes at the door, preferring to be barefoot in the house. Reese followed suit.

She had him follow her into the kitchen and he sat down in the same chair where she had tended the wound on his back. "What can I get you to eat? You look starving." She took a better look at him while he was starting to say he didn't want her to go to any trouble. His eyes were dark and hollow-looking. He hadn't shaved and his stubble made his face look gaunt. His skin was pale. She could see that he was struggling but he did not seem aware of it. She ignored what he said and pulled out some food for them. Coffee was dripping into a glass carafe, filling the kitchen with the aroma of freshly ground dark coffee beans, while she heated leftovers from another meal.

Soon they were filling their plates and walking back to the living room, sitting on the leather couch. She let him eat without disturbing the silence. The color began to come back into his face and his expression was less desperate.

He thought about Jules and the wooden man back in the training room. It made him look at her arms. Using the wooden man meant striking and lifting the hard polished wood with her bare arms with enough force to lift the full weight of the tree trunk up as well. He could see some bruising on her forearms. She smiled as she read his eyes, but she still said nothing.

She went back out to the kitchen and brought another plate of food for him, and more coffee. He had had no idea that he was so empty. She expected that it was just part of his training to ignore his own needs in order to complete the mission. He was not used to paying attention to how he felt, much less verbalizing it. In that regard, he was like so many of the service men and women she had treated over the years.

"I'm glad to see you," she started, adjusting her position to face him on the couch.

"I had to come back here. There is something going on – with you." He watched her reaction, but she did not give away any hint that she knew what he meant.

"Tell me more," she said. He thought about how to tell her that he could not get back to his former state of mind. He couldn't concentrate, couldn't focus. He was preoccupied by memories of what had happened in his past, mainly painful memories that he could not avoid. Yes, she had told him to expect memories from his past to come up, but this was more like an uncontrollable avalanche. And there was a sensation of some physical connection to her that had been expanding since he left yesterday afternoon. He had never felt anything like it. It had been a physical pulling, coiling sensation in his chest that had built up stronger and stronger over the night while he was in his apartment and then later while he was driving here. And now that he was in her presence again, it had settled into a pressure on his skin, like a warm, crawling, buzzing sensation.

"Too much is happening that I don't understand, and you are the only one I can–who can make sense of it. I need your help." His eyes were dark and he looked exhausted to her, as though no amount of sleep could help, but wired, as though he couldn't sleep, either. She felt the agitation, like the vibration of a motor running full throttle. It was uncomfortable to see him in this state. His leg was shaking absently as he sat at the edge of the seat. His eyes were staring.

"What can I do to help you? She asked softly, waiting to see what insight he might have. He looked more agitated and shook his head, wordlessly.

"I'll be right back to get you. I need to set up my space to work." She got up and went down the hall past her kitchen, then right, down another long hall. At the end was a large, square room, with thick carpeting and heavy drapes. In the center of the room was her favorite treatment table. The top was heavily padded and it sat on a sturdy oak base. The table was surrounded on all sides with space for her to work around the patient.

There were beautiful quartz crystal singing bowls of different colors and sizes on shelves along one side wall. They were part of one of the healing techniques she used, either singly or in groups, set up on the floor all around the patient lying on the treatment table. A suede mallet rubbed around the rim of the bowl caused a musical note to vibrate out and fill the space with sound. Each bowl sang a different note. The sounding of the bowls filled the room with an intense musical vibration that she used to influence the patient's body directly, one type of vibrational healing. But, she wasn't planning to use them today–she felt that this first treatment in this room needed a different approach. She would save the bowls for another day.

At the far end of the room were cabinets to hold her supplies. There was a counter with a special lamp on it, and speakers for her music system. She went to the cabinet and turned on the lamp, which was a quarried chunk of rock salt, rough and very heavy, from Poland. It was a deep orange color from the minerals dissolved in the salt and had a long tubular bulb installed in a hollowed out portion inside it. The lamp glowed deep orange with the bulb lit and that was the only light she kept on in the room during her treatments. She reminded herself that orange was the color of change.

Next, she selected a disc with music on it to play in the background. The discs were part of a library of music she had collected over the years for her sessions. They were designed for healing and she found that including the therapeutic music was an integral part of the work she did. It created a space where time suspended and the patient could experience in his body the musical vibrations and her own hands-on healing energy, together. Perhaps for the first time, the person could feel silence. It was deeply nurturing to have such a session.

Jules queued the music to the first track, then turned to the treatment table. Under the padded top was shelving that held the thick flannel sheets she used. She opened a fitted one and stretched the corners over the padded top, smoothing the surface. Then, she pulled out a flat sheet and left it folded for now on the surface. A thick blanket on the patient helped create the nurturing experience she wanted for him.

When everything was set, Jules went back out into the hallway, but diverted to her own bedroom, and quickly changed clothes, still damp and cool from her workout earlier. Then she went back out to the living room, where Reese still sat on the edge of the couch; he looked dazed to her.

She laid her hand gently across his upper back, and bent down to his ear, whispering for him to come with her. He got up and let her lead him to her treatment room.

It looked cozy and inviting as she had it set up. He stopped at the threshold to look in, then walked forward. She helped him sit and remove his leather jacket and sweater. Then she had him lie on his back on the table, placing a large fabric bolster under his knees to lift them and relax his lumbar muscles. She covered him with the doubled-over flannel sheet. A scent of cinnamon from the flannel wafted out into the air.

His eyes were half-closed now and unfocused. She was ready to begin. At her touch, the player began to play the first track, a haunting melody woven of oboe, flute, English horn and piano, in the dim light of the room. She adjusted the speaker balance and volume, which filled the space all around them with the rich but subdued sound.

The soft, undulating beat of the music created a natural to-and-fro rhythm that she used to start the session, moving his head, gently rocking it slowly to the left, then back to the right, in time with the music. The motion was slow and gentle, well within the comfortable range of motion in his neck, on each side. She repeated the same motion, side to side, several times, and felt him more deeply allow it each time.

The music, so familiar to her after so many years, ushered Jules comfortably into her own healing state, meditative, thought-less. She surrendered her conscious awareness–to allow space for the healing mind to dwell: conscious thought interrupted Flow.

The thick carpeting and drapes in the room insulated it from outside noise, swallowing random sound, making it feel more private, more intimate, safe. The only light was the soft orange glow from the salt lamp. So comforting.

Interweaving oboe and flute reached out to guide the loosening of any tightly-held thought, carrying the body ever more gently toward an open softened state in the dim light. The music invited one to follow the sound down a gentle path, in slow discovery of a peaceful state of being, suspended in comforting velvety black space.

Over the next two hours, she worked with him, deeply unwinding layer after layer of tissue under her hands, encouraging the blocked energy in his body to flow and re-balance, soothing his overworked mind, re-capturing scattered energy back to _dan tien_ , in perfect harmony with the music she had chosen for this treatment.

Then Jules returned to the side of the table, placing her hands inches above him, slowly walking her outstretched hands from his head down the length of his body, smoothing the energy flow around him, shaking her hands out away from his feet at the far end of the table. She repeated the smoothing two more times, then sat down at his head, cupping it in her hands, closing her eyes, and finally bringing the treatment to a close.

At the end, she saw that he was deeply asleep. She nodded and went back out to the living room, opening the coffee table trunk where she kept her extra blankets, pulling out the soft cotton quilt he had used the night before. She covered him with it and then went to the player to change the music.

She started a loop which had inaudible tones recorded behind the gentle music. The tones vibrated at the specific frequencies designed to entrain the delta brainwave, the one associated with sleep. Listening to it, even while asleep, would encourage the brain to match the frequency, making the delta wave his dominant brainwave. She wanted this to help him stay in this deep sleep, undisturbed by the painful memories he had been having.

When all was done, she rubbed her palms together lightly for a few moments, then placed her hands on his head and bent forward with her eyes closed. Her lips moved as she silently uttered a prayer for his well-being and peace of mind. Then she left him to sleep in the room bathed in peaceful music and soft orange light from the glowing salt lamp.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 17 - CAN'T FORGET AND DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER**

* * *

Jules took a long shower for herself, letting the healing properties of water re-balance her own energy, breathing deeply of soothing aromatic herbs in the wet air. Then she dried herself, rubbed her skin with coconut oil and dressed in fragrant soft cotton clothing. She walked barefoot down the hall, stopping to check in on him as she returned to the living room.

It was a warm, densely foggy day today, and the milky white light glowed in softly through the french doors from the deck. The wind had picked up since this morning and the warm fog swirled in the yard. There was an electricity in the air, verging on uncomfortable, agitating. It felt like a storm was coming. The weather near water was always changeable.

Jules went out to the kitchen and poured a mug of rich, dark coffee and picked out a small croissant to have with it. She missed the shops on the street near her apartment in France. She had wonderful coffee and croissant every day there, sitting at the tiny table, watching people pass by outside the window, while she chatted with the shopkeeper and his regular customers. It made her nostalgic for a song she wanted to hear, and she put a disc on the player in the living room. A man and a woman each sang alone, then in a touching duet, in French, as Jules sat back on the couch with her treat.

She thought about what would come next for them. Reese had responded more acutely than she had expected, but that made her believe the process would be briefer albeit more explosive. She didn't know his personal history but she sensed great pain and loss in him. She could help him, but it would take time to bring him to a different way of thinking about himself, his purpose. It was a process. It had been for her as well...

Later, Jules was in the kitchen chopping cabbage into long shreds when Reese appeared at the doorway, rubbing the stubble on his jaw. He looked like he just woke up, which he had, and was a little rough around the edges.

She smiled up at him and asked if he wanted to get a shower, or maybe have a cup of coffee? He nodded toward the coffee and went to the thermos to pour a cup, holding it between his hands, staring down into the dark depths of the brew. He closed his eyelids and breathed a little deeper breath, shaking his head very slightly as though considering something. When he didn't speak, she offered him a plate of tart fall apple slices she had just cut for a snack and he took a few slices. As Reese walked into the kitchen toward one of the seats at the counter, he hooked her arm as he passed, pulling Jules with him. He sat down, and she could see the emotions in his face.

Jules sat down facing him, studying his expression, and reached out to rest her hand on his forearm nearest her, steadying him. "It's okay. You came back here because you needed to get past something. Is that right?" He nodded to her and leaned forward, holding his head in his hands.

"Memories of things that happened–things I can't forget and don't want to remember."

"Umm," she said, encouraging him to go on.

"I can't do anything to make it right" he said, eyes hidden by his hands. She was careful not to intervene, explain, or distract him from this trauma. She stayed present with him and let it play out as it would.

For him, he could see a way to tell her about what had happened to him. It seemed important to tell her. He was seeing it in a way he had never seen it before and he wanted to share it with her before he lost the thread of it. He raised himself upright and faced Jules. The words came more easily now.

"Years back, I was stationed in California and I met a woman who–changed me. She made me want to be–better than I was. She waited for me when I went back into the Rangers, to Afghanistan after 9/11. We had been talking about settling down, having a family, making a new start somewhere, before we got hit that day. But, that day changed everything." He paused for a bit and his eyes were distant as though he was seeing everything played out on a movie screen in front of him. She watched his expression change.

"Then, one night I was on a mission in the mountains outside of Herat. Small group of us traveling at night, and we came up on some Rangers chasing Taliban escaping up out of Herat toward the border with Iran. It turned into a firefight. We were pinned down and couldn't get up there to help them. We called for air support, but it came in too late. By the time we got on scene, the men up there, Rangers and Taliban, all dead, every one. We stopped to check ID tags, pockets, but we couldn't stay. Had to be across the mountain by dawn.

"Later, I remembered that each one of those dead men had something–a picture of his girl, his wife, his kids–someone." He paused and tried to say it so she could see it the way he had.

"They all died because they had someone to die for." He looked deeply into her eyes to see if she could understand what he was saying. She stayed present with him, acknowledging, but did not speak.

"I didn't want to die out there–I knew I had to walk away from everyone in my life. No attachments. To survive, there can't be anyone you would die for." He paused again, trying to read her expression, and knowing what was coming. Jules held his look, and felt a deep aching inside, not sure if it was his or hers.

"I wrote to her, told her I didn't want her to wait for me anymore. She should go on with her life. At first, she sent letters, to me, to my men. She couldn't understand what happened. Then the letters stopped.

"I wanted her to be happy. I didn't want her to be there wasting her life–always waiting for me to come back home. She deserved so much more than I could give her–."

His eyes welled up, as he thought of her, of the sacrifice he had made her endure, of the grinding loss he had held in all these years. He reached out to Jules, grasping her forearm. She steadied him, remained silent, and let him go on.

"When I got back, I didn't try to contact her. I signed on with another group and they sent me out right away. I was in the airport–she showed up–we talked and she told me she was engaged to someone back East. She asked me if I wanted her– ," he paused as his voice faltered, "to wait for me –she said she would, if I just asked her." Jules could feel the tension in his body like a vibration in her arm where he gripped it. She waited until he could go on. His voice was just a whisper now.

"She walked away, and I didn't stop her. I wanted to–I wanted to." He stared at the screen in front of his eyes, dreading the next part. His grip tightened around her arm. She covered his hand with her free hand, reassuring him. His body rocked forward and backward on the edge of the chair.

"It was four years later when I heard from her. I was working, out of the country. Something was wrong–I could hear it in her voice. She was scared. I told her I would be right there for her, I was coming to get her. But we were diverted to another mission. I couldn't leave.

"The mission–went bad. We were left for dead. I had to get out on my own. When I got back, I couldn't find her. I went to the hospital where she worked. They said– " he stopped and closed his eyes, leaning forward, shoulders hunched.

"she was dead–car crash. Husband almost died, too. I didn't believe it. I went to her house and waited for him to come home. When he came back, I made him tell me what really happened. He did it–killed her–tried to cover it up with the crash." The vibration in her arm increased. He had more to say. She waited for him to be ready.

"He came at me with the fireplace poker." Reese stopped and looked at her face with a strange look in his eyes. In a whisper, he said to her "that was a mistake–." His grip increased even more on her arm as he stared back at the screen before his eyes, reacting to the escalating, violent scene in the house; then his face went blank and his grip loosened. His eyes shifted to hers. He wondered what she would think, how she would react when she realized what he had done. He waited for her to speak. Her expression gave nothing away.

"What happened to him?" She stayed unemotional, meeting his eyes fully, without hesitation.

"Gone," he said, unapologetic. She just nodded. There was no hint of her reaction–she just absorbed it like data.

"Where did you go after that?" She watched his eyes return to the screen, expression clouding.

"New York. Rode the subways for weeks. Homeless. Drinking too much. Fighting. Didn't care about anything, anyone." He paused to pull in a deeper breath, and his body bent forward under the weight of this next memory. His voice was a whisper again.

"I was heading to a bridge one night–had had enough of everything. I was ready to–leave." His eyes welled up, as he remembered the feeling of being so lost then. Everything he had valued had been torn away from him; he didn't know what he was any longer. He remembered he was nearly asleep on the subway, alone in the car in the middle of the night, his fifth of whiskey gripped in one hand as the train car jostled side to side, metal wheels screeching around the turns in the tunnel. He heard the young men enter his empty car at the far end, but didn't stir. They couldn't pass by and leave him be; they poked at him, taunted him, tried to pull his bottle away, then surrounded him like he was a wounded animal. When it went too far, he had sprung up out of his seat, and it was over quickly. They were no threat to him, even in his condition.

"Some punks came after me and there was a fight. I got arrested–ended up in the precinct house, and that was when I met Joss Carter, an NYPD detective." Reese smiled a small smile at the memory of it. "But before that, she was an Army interrogator in Iraq, two tours. She knew when you were lying–even to yourself–and she told you to your face." Another small smile. Then serious.

"Carter pulled me up out of the gutter that night–soldier to soldier. Leave no man behind. Right?" He stopped, overcome with the power of saying those words from his soldier days. He shifted in his seat. His eyes filled up again, and spilled over onto his face. He was remembering how precious Carter had become in his life after that. So tough. So strong. Uncompromising. She was the best of all of them, he thought. His voice was choked.

"She saved me that night." It hurt to remember how lost he was–how low he had sunk in those days. He had lost himself and couldn't find a reason to go on. Tears flowed down his face. Jules steadied him with her hand on his arm. He nodded and went on.

"She saved me and then she let me go." He brought his eyes up to Jules, allowing her to see into this deep, complicated wound. She remained steady, nearly moved to tears herself, but did not try to interfere with his telling of it. He went on, after gathering himself, his hand still wrapped around Jules' arm.

"That was the start. We got close, really close." She could see it all in his face–the love he had had for this tough, strong, independent woman. Jules would want to explore this more with him, in the future.

Reese let go of Jules' arm. He was wiping away the tears on his face with the back of his hand. Then he looked down at his hands, and he started to smile a bit again.

"And right after that, Harold found me–offered me a job." Reese shook his head, recalling how this meeting had altered his life.

"What was that like?" Jules asked him. He thought about it. He was almost poetic with his answer.

"Like I was alone, dying of thirst in the desert, and I wake up to see a man with _buckets_ of water." He fell silent for awhile. She nodded, then watched him remember.


	4. Part 3

**CHAPTER 18 - GRACE, WHAT IS THIS PLACE?**

* * *

 **Bethesda, Maryland July, 2014**

Sunshine was pouring into the room and a breeze pushed the curtains gently toward him, but Harold didn't notice. He had fallen asleep in his chair. Nearby, there was a small side-table with a bone china plate smeared with a swirl of dark brown gravy, and a matching tea cup with a swallow of tea left in the bottom. A crumpled napkin rocked in the slight breeze, next to the plate. Dessert sat untouched near his tea cup, a small scoop of lemon sorbet with fresh raspberries. The sorbet had melted into a yellow-white puddle, leaving the luscious raspberries run aground at the bottom of the pretty, delicate dish.

Across from him, a stack of old books sat on the coffee table. Their top edges were studded with colorful paper bookmarks he had placed to return there once again. An upholstered ottoman, matching the fabric of his chair, elevated his legs as he napped. He had been reading for hours and then had eaten a leisurely lunch, before leaning back to rest his tired eyes.

At the door, there was a soft knocking, but too soft to wake him from slumber–a pause, then a little harder knocking. The door opened slowly and a dark-haired woman entered, smiling expectantly. She took in the scene, then saw her beloved, asleep in his chair.

Quietly, she crossed to the chair and bent down over him, kissing his cheek. He stirred and his eyes opened slowly. He reached up to rub them, under his glasses, then adjusted the frames, before looking up to see who was there next to him.

"Grace?" he said, squinting, confused, shaking his head. She smiled her pleased smile and nodded.

"What are you _doing_ here?" he asked, surprised to see her.

"Oh, Harold, you are not remembering, today?" She appeared slightly disappointed, but quickly changed her expression to appear nonchalant about it. She picked up his hand in her hands, sitting on the corner of the ottoman next to him, pressing her leg against his. He was still looking confused. It was a delicate thing, this bringing him back gently, but insistently, to remember what had happened.

"It is alright, Harold, I just woke you from a sound sleep. You are startled and a bit disoriented. It will all come back to you in a few minutes." He began to look around at his surroundings, but nothing looked familiar, except for the stack of books. They were from his personal collection. He recognized the titles, the faded jacket covers with the slight wear marks from his handling through the years.

His books were not on his shelves for looks. He consulted them, let them speak to him, needed the touch of their smooth pages, the pleasure of handling real paper, and the comfort of their black fonts in the reflection of light off the paper weave. No computer screen could reproduce the experience of a real book in his hands. His library was tens of thousands of volumes, collected lovingly through his lifetime, irreplaceable, his refuge. He smiled absently at the stack.

Grace smiled, too, noticing where his eyes were focused, and understanding his deep attachment to his books. She was an artist herself, after all, in love with the tactile elements of her own craft.

"How are you feeling today, Harold?" He looked up at her, a little bewildered, she thought.

"I feel fine–I am just having trouble–" again, he peered around the room. It was decidedly unfamiliar.

"Grace, what is this place?" She had that small frown again for a brief moment, long enough for him to see, then quickly covered with a practiced smile.

"Do you remember that you came here to recover after–everything?" she asked, with a fragment of her lower lip caught gently between her teeth, and the look of someone regarding a fragile, broken, but loved relation. He could see that he was letting her down in some way, that she was upset, but trying to hide it from him.

"I'm sorry, Grace. I can't seem to remember–tell me what has happened." He watched her face dissolve into sadness and Harold tried to recall anything that could explain her reaction. There was nothing. Grace raised her eyes to his.

"Where should I start? What is the last thing you remember, my love?" She held his hand up near her face, trying to reassure him. He sat up awkwardly, his fused cervical spine giving his head movement a ratcheting motion.

Harold tried to think again of anything he could remember and noticed without any particular emotion that his memory was just fragments, tatters of real memories. When he looked into Grace's eyes–she looked hopeful for a second, but then, seeing his blank eyes, knew that he had lost everything they had pieced together the day before.

Harold moved his legs off the ottoman, and leaned forward to Grace, holding both of her hands gently in his own, certain that his eyes had betrayed him.

"It's just fragments, Grace–nothing concrete." She dropped her eyes to the floor, hiding her reaction from him.

"Harold, I am so sorry to make you go through this all over again. Can you remember that you were wounded–shot in the side, here," she asked, pressing her hand to his left flank. He just watched her, without acknowledging, since he had no recollection as yet.

"You were with Reese, remember? You brought him to one of the lower floors to help you. You had a plan to save your friend. Do you remember you closed the gate and trapped him inside there so he couldn't follow you and interfere with your plan?" She saw no hint of this memory in his expression. She went on.

"Do you remember how your own Machine was disabled, was nearly destroyed, and it couldn't communicate any longer? Samaritan. Do you remember Samaritan?" He suddenly recalled that name. Something powerful and destructive. It had taken away the dearest parts of his life–of course he remembered Samaritan. His eyes closed as he flashed through images of the rival surveillance system, unbridled, attacking his team and ultimately squeezing his own Machine down into a compressed, unusable state, hidden in an electronic suitcase to save it.

His team had gone on the run, taking on new identities, deflecting Samaritan's deadly glare away from their small corps, while they desperately looked for ways to fight back. Grace could see that something had clicked in his memory and Harold's eyes were accessing the images.

Harold remembered Root being there, but somehow it was only her voice. She had succeeded in melding with the critically wounded Machine, speaking for it, giving its last instructions through her voice into his earpiece as he made his way to the roof, preparing to carry out his last mission.

He saw himself walking unsteadily toward the edge, feeling suddenly cold, as his body began to descend into shock. He saw himself open his jacket and look at the blood soaking into his clothing. He couldn't remember how it had happened–but it didn't really matter any longer. He leaned against the wall that looked down over the street below, resting for a moment before he could go on.

Then a curious thing–his attention was attracted to the building across the street. A figure on the roof was calling out to him. It was John Reese–how could that be? He was safely locked inside, floors below.

No–that was John over there, calling to him. Harold was weakening, blood flow dropping pressure as it pumped weakly toward his brain. He pushed himself away from the wall, trying to stay conscious and on his feet.

John was talking to him across the space between their buildings. He had guessed that Harold would try to do something like this and he had been prepared. Reese had drawn the enemy looking for Harold over to himself on the other building, making himself a sitting duck to save Harold's life.

"You always said, Harold, that neither one of us would likely make it out alive in the end." John stood with his arms outstretched at his sides, facing Harold, across the expanse. His face was calm now, his plan launched and working flawlessly.

Then the shooting had started and Reese was returning fire toward three lines of black-clothed soldiers sent by Samaritan, hopelessly outgunned, falling back to an exposed corner on the rooftop across the street. Harold could not help, could not even call for aid, could only stand helplessly watching his dear friend submit to his fate.

Grace saw tears form and overflow down Harold's face as he remembered it all. She reached out for him, wrapping him gently with her arms, holding him close, comforting him as best she could.

He would ask her, again, as he always did, when he was able to speak, what had become of the rest of his team. He could not bear to remember what she told him, that they had been rounded up, one by one, each one ultimately avoiding capture and ending life in battle. No surrender. All gone.

His body shook against Grace's shoulder, her arms supporting and comforting him as he relived this most personal nightmare once again. There were no words.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 19 - CUMULATIVE CUTS**

* * *

 **Upstate NY, October 2016**

It was late afternoon and the light was growing ever dimmer outside. The dense fog swirled in the yard and they could hear thunder far off in the distance, followed by flashes of lightning and more thunder. Raindrops began to splatter onto the deck outside.

Reese and Jules were sitting in the living room on the couch, Reese tucked into the corner of the "L", and Jules cross-legged, facing him. They had been talking for hours, well, Reese had been talking for hours while Jules had carefully held back, just guided him, reassured him, as needed.

An incredible story had tumbled out of him on the couch in the safety of her living room. He had described a mission that he had been hired to undertake, to find individuals who had been tagged by a sophisticated computer system. The individuals had been identified as being at risk for some violent act, and Reese had been recruited to intervene, stop it and save the innocent from harm.

Over time, other members were recruited and a team had formed to carry out the dangerous mission in the streets of New York. Reese had told her about the people they had saved, but also about the dangers they had faced: The Russian mob, corrupt politicians, the mafia, the dirty cops, and some enemies from his own past in the CIA. On and on, in a dizzying array of characters, good and bad, the team had found the tagged individuals, sorted them out, and dealt with them.

There were parts of the story that she noticed Reese had left out–like the details of Harold's role in this team, how the individuals were tagged in the first place, and more. There was far more to this story than had been said, she knew. But this was a start and was confirmation to her of the approach she had undertaken with Reese.

Jules had begun by showing her loyalty to him right from the first hours of their meeting, laying the emotional groundwork to build his trust. She had succeeded in opening channels back to a time in his past when he had had different plans, more options, different relationships. Those memories had begun to wear at the wall Reese had constructed inside himself, like heavy, insistent water flowing, forming cracks and releasing what lay behind the wall.

She had carefully constructed a special bond with him, through her hands, through her deep work with him. Jules had imprinted Reese on her, bound him up to her, knowing that when the time came and he was ready to talk, it could be no one else but her that he would turn to.

Here, in these hours, was the proof that she had been right. He had returned to her and was sharing this history. It was a gift for her, certainly. But it was, more importantly, the beginning of what would be a new trajectory for Reese. A new story could now be written, and he could escape the death spiral that had magnetized him into its orbit.

She had seen it all too often. Those who were given the most difficult ethical lines to walk, and who were often expected to stray over, to protect us, were then left behind, without a path back. There was no one there to acknowledge the deeper wounds inside, wounds from the cumulative cuts of each sanctioned death, each crime committed. There was a cost for doing this kind of work, but no plan to pay it down. And men like Reese did not ask for help. They just kept going until they couldn't. They retreated deeper and deeper into shadow, aware that they no longer squared with the public they were protecting. People like Reese would never seek out nor respond to conventional therapy. Reese was trained to suppress attention to his own needs–one reason he was so right for his job. It would take a different approach to latch on and draw him from the shadows. Jules had used her different, hands-on skills to do so. She had helped Reese locate the path back, illuminated it for him in the darkness; but he still had to choose to walk it. She was hopeful that he wanted to. It had always given her a deep sense of gratitude for being part of such transformations. It was humbling at the same time as it was exhilarating.

The rain was coming down hard on the deck, and the flashes of lightning were immediately followed by thunder. The storm was right on top of them now. They saw the house lights flicker in the weather. Jules got up and pulled out a few lanterns from the storage closet under the stairs, just in case they lost power. She told Reese she was going to make some food for them so they could take a break for a little while. He got up and stretched, walking with her into the kitchen. He made a pot of coffee for them, while she pulled out food from the refrigerator and began heating it on the stove. While the food was heating, Reese went back to the living room and got a fire going in the fireplace. Jules went back to her bedroom and put on some warmer clothes. The air had cooled off as the front moved through, and it was getting a little chilly in the house now.

They carried their plates and mugs of coffee back to the living room in front of the fire and had leftover fish stew, biscuits, and some bitter greens with a fig dressing and goat cheese that she threw together for them. They realized they were both famished after the long hours of intense conversation. It was good just to stop for a little while and regroup.

She looked at Reese as he sat eating his meal. He was different. The strain in his face was gone now. His eyes were clear, and softer. He had real emotion and uninhibited expression in his face when he spoke. She didn't know if he had noticed the change in himself, but she hoped for his sake it could continue for a little while longer. This had been better than she had even dared to hope for.

She believed that he could bring his story to a logical stopping point, and that he could then decide if he wanted to stay the night in her home, or go back to New York tonight. The thought of Reese changing back into his stoic, more distant demeanor filled her with a twinge of sadness, but it was also crucial. He could not risk functioning in his work when he was this open and vulnerable. It would be dangerous for him and for the team that depended on him. She wanted him to recover his warrior state before he went back.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 20 - I CAN'T FIND YOU, HAROLD**

* * *

 **Bethesda, Maryland, July, 2014**

In the center of a cavernous darkened room was a strange object, glowing with blue light. It was egg-shaped, with a domed roof that was split from side to side across the top, most of the way back. The split was hinged and the near portion could lift up, revealing the inner contents.

On the right side was a raised wide catwalk running the length of the object, allowing easy access to the inside. Two figures, clad completely in black garments and head covers, rolled a black wheelchair soundlessly to the ramp that led up to the catwalk. They ascended, bathed in the blue light.

When they reached the middle of the object, up on the catwalk, one of them switched off the glowing lights on the outside, plunging the entire room into complete blackness. Then they turned on their own goggles before moving toward the object.

One of the men lifted the roof, which raised silently at the hinge. It was black inside, but through their goggles they could see the heat signal from the water inside, and the shape of a man floating in the water. A voice was calling out from the blackness inside. It was Harold's voice, anxious, strained.

"No, that is _not_ correct. My books are not for sale. Not for sale. Not for sale–." He trailed off. No one spoke back to him.

The men lifted Harold from the tank and sat him in the black wheelchair. His body was covered in a thin, nearly-weightless fabric that maintained his body temperature exactly the same as the water in the isolation tank, circulating body-temperature water inside its layers to maintain the effect. It blocked temperature sensation differences that Harold might otherwise perceive through his own skin. Likewise, pressure and vibration were modulated through the skin of the suit, effectively denying him his sense of touch. They disconnected his suit and his goggles from supply lines inside the tank. Then, they turned around and wheeled him soundlessly down the catwalk and ramp to a door that led into another black space. Harold was mumbling to himself, making lists of parts for a turntable for the stereo system he had hand-built years ago.

In the room, the black-clad men attached fine wires to the sides of a special goggle Harold was wearing, and connected the body suit to a source of preheated water, and power. Then they moved away to the back of the room, waiting.

A short time later an image began to form in the goggles over Harold's eyes. He stopped speaking as the faint light caught his attention. "What is that?" he asked. He thought he had said it out loud. The fabric of his suit covered his head and held in place earphones that blocked sound from outside, but transmitted remote signals. Just at the threshold of his perception was a sound in his ears. Indistinct. It came again, and again, a tiny bit louder each time. It was familiar. He knew the sound. It was a voice, warm and friendly. It was Grace's voice, calling to him.

"Harold, my love, I miss you," came the voice in his ears. He perked up in his seat, looking for her.

"Grace? Grace? I miss you." he replied, but he did not hear his own voice – just silence. Had he just thought it? He tried again, but heard no sound.

"Harold, my love, I want to be with you" came the voice.

"Gracie, come here, come here to me," he insisted, but again there was no sound.

"I can't find you, Harold. Help me. Help me find you."

Grace's image appeared on the goggles as though she was standing right in front of him. But she didn't see him. Her eyes were searching. Her face was stressed.

Harold's heart began to pound in his chest. He couldn't think clearly. How could he reach her? Where was she?

"Harold, you are with the Machine right now. Tell me how to find you. I want to be with you, my love."

* * *

 **CHAPTER 21 - IT CAN FALL APART PRETTY FAST**

* * *

 **Upstate New York, October, 2016**

The fire was crackling in the fireplace, and the two of them were relaxing after finishing dinner. The lights had flickered a few times, and then had finally gone out completely in the house, but they were comfortable as they were. Jules was used to living where electricity was fickle. Reese had spent much of his life in situations without the amenities.

They were both stretched out on the legs of the couch, covered with blankets, staring at the firelight. Reese was curious about Jules' story.

"Tell me something about yourself. It's your turn," he said to her, smiling, as he turned his head to face her. She smiled and thought about what to tell him.

"Where do you go when you are overseas?" he asked, to get her started. She nodded and cocked her head, thinking of how to begin.

"After I left private practice, I joined a humanitarian group based in France. We go into areas that need our services for up to a year. We have medical, surgical, engineering, and other services to help them as quickly as possible. It is a huge logistical problem most of the time, because the infrastructure may have been destroyed, or it may never have existed at all." She stopped and let him take it in. He now understood her French accent.

"What is your role?" he asked, picturing her working in a relief camp.

"Mostly medical, but we all pitch in to help with planning, coordinating, logistics. It's a small group of twelve of us from all over the world that goes in first, and then others join and leave as they're needed. They rotate through our other sites all over the world, while we stay and provide continuity in that one location. My team has worked together for more than ten years. We are like family." Reese nodded.

A loud crash of thunder startled them. The main storm was moving off, but a few rogue downpours were still coming through. They had decided that Reese would stay the night, and head back in the morning when the weather had improved, and he had had time to regroup. He had spoken with Harold earlier, and Harold was only too happy to have him stay longer with Jules. He sounded ebullient on the phone, and Reese had had the two speak with one another briefly before hanging up.

Jules was getting tired. She was yawning. But she was also curious and wanted to know something from Reese.

"Tell me about Harold. I have known him for many years, but not in the same way that you do. Tell me about how you two work together." She fluffed up her pillow and leaned back against the couch's tall sloped back, nestling in. Reese was winding down, too. He was drained from all the driving, and from the emotional roller-coaster he had been on the last two days.

"Harold hired me. He's the researcher. He gets the data for our targets and coordinates the response. I am just the instrument, usually the blunt instrument, he uses to get the job done."

"That's a little unfair to yourself, don't you think? I get the sense of precision and a measured response from you–I doubt that you need to be managed by anyone."

"It can fall apart pretty fast when Harold isn't there," Reese said softly.

"How so?" Jules asked, yawning again, and her eyes closing, against her desire to hear more.

Reese thought about how they had nearly lost Harold some time back. He leaned back and settled in to rest, recalling the events of those days when Samaritan had first challenged them.

It was when Samaritan had launched a sting operation in Manhattan, and there was no violent crime reported at all for the first 24 hours. It was meant to be a show of force and dominance, to convince their team of the futility of fighting Samaritan for control. And it also drew them out in the open during the next phase.

Samaritan launched a cyber attack on the New York Stock Exchange, precipitating a flash crash with potentially devastating financial impacts across the world. A wave of violence began, also triggered by Samaritan, which promptly pulled back from intervening in the crime spree, leaving the Machine and Harold's team to respond.

With the markets in free fall, Harold had gone to the stock exchange to deploy a fix for the cyber crash, while the rest of the team stretched thin to respond to the burst of mayhem spreading across the City simultaneously. As the markets began to right, and with a long list of irrelevants to track down, everyone on the team was pressed into service to stop the expanding violence, even Harold.

In the chaos, Harold was captured and eventually brought to a secure Samaritan facility near Washington, D.C., where he encountered Greer once again. Greer was MI-6 in the past, but now he was the working face of Samaritan, fully dedicated to the rise of Samaritan's control.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 22 - AWARENESS, WITHOUT SENSATION**

* * *

 **Bethesda, Maryland July, 2014**

"Mr. Finch, so we meet again," Greer said, smiling with his face, but with the cold eyes of a shark coming for prey. Finch said nothing. A meeting like this was inevitable in his mind. It was now just a formality to hear what Greer had to say, what his demands might be. Harold would refuse them, of course, and the rest would unfold with both sides facing heavy losses as they battled in the streets for control. Unless there was another way.

"I hope that you have enjoyed our little demonstration over the last few days. You surely noticed that yesterday was remarkably free of violent crime. Not one was reported for twenty four hours – due in total to the efforts of Samaritan to prevent crimes before they could be perpetrated. How, Mr. Finch, can you and your band of misfits hope to stand against–all of this?" he swept his arms out around him in the room, taking in the footprint of this data center as it looked out on the city and, beyond that, to the world at large. Harold remained quiet.

"Surely, you must see the futility in this?" he asked, throwing his arms out wide. When Harold did not respond, Greer peered at him, smiling, making himself appear to be reasonable. "I wish to make you an offer, _a one-time offer_ , Mr. Finch. I will spare the lives of your team, if you turn over your Machine to me right now." Harold could see the cold, unfeeling eyes behind the smile. This shark was closing in. Harold had nothing to say. Greer could never be allowed to get access to the Machine, regardless of the cost.

"I see. Perhaps if I sweeten the pot." In front of them, a large monitor switched to a street scene. It was early evening and there were people sitting at tables enjoying food and wine. As they watched, the camera panned along the street, and Harold could see a woman sitting alone, reading from a book, as she sipped wine. The camera moved in for a close-up, and they could see that it was Grace. Harold winced and closed his eyes for a moment.

"She means nothing to you, Mr. Greer. Let her go." Harold said to the white-haired man with the cold eyes.

"Ah, but, Mr. Finch, she means everything to you!" Greer smiled even wider, showing some of his teeth. How like the shark, whose lips pull back, exposing teeth as it nears its victim, just at the moment it strikes.

On the screen, two men approached her table from opposite sides and sat down. She looked up, startled. The men spoke to her, and she appeared alarmed. One of them put his hand on her arm, to keep her from fleeing, and the three got up from the table, walking off to the side, out of the view of the camera. Harold looked down at the floor. He said nothing.

"No? You have nothing to say, Mr. Finch? Very well – – take him," he said to his security detail nearby, all signs of his smile vanishing. He watched as they led Harold away. He had some surprises planned for Mr. Finch.

They brought him to a room nearby and sat him in a chair. He was preparing for anything they might do to him. One of the men drew up some fluid into a syringe and walked toward him. Harold struggled, but the man pushed the needle into his shoulder muscle, on the side of the arm. In a few moments there was a strange taste in his mouth, and he began to feel odd–then like he was spinning– then blackness.

The men picked him up and put him on a table, sliding his clothing off, and carefully rolling the lightweight bodysuit over his skin, preparing him for his initial exposure to the isolation tank. In a short time he would awaken in total blackness, unable to see his surroundings, with no sense of touch, no vibration, nor temperature, and no sound. He would have no memory of how he got there, and would not be able to escape the consuming fear, the panic, of having awareness without sensation.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 23 - NOT RESPONDING**

* * *

 **Bethesda, Maryland July 2014**

Rain was pouring down on the sidewalk outside and lightning flashed with thunder right behind. The curtains hung straight down at the windows, closed tightly against the wind-driven rain pelting the glass.

Harold was asleep in his chair as Grace entered the room and crossed to him. At her kiss, he woke and stared at her, without recognizing her.

He appeared peeved that she had awakened him and asked what she wanted. Her smile vanished and she backed up, mumbling an apology, then left the room.

Down the hallway, which looked like any other hallway, was a door at the end that she tapped on twice. It opened and she entered a large room filled with video monitors, laptops, support equipment for the isolation tank, and six staff, plus her boss.

She went to him directly and they stood looking at the monitor aimed at Harold. He was peering around at the room and clearly did not recognize where he was.

"He is increasingly uncooperative and irritable, Mr. Greer," she said, folding her arms across her body.

"Yes, I see, Regina. Let's try the tank again for tonight. And tomorrow, something a little less subtle."

"Sir," she nodded and walked quickly to two staffers to give Greer's orders. They immediately left the room and stopped next door to change clothing, while Regina stepped into a lighted room nearby to remove the prosthetics from her face that transformed her into Harold's beloved Grace.

Lights in Harold's room dimmed, then went out. Black-out shades on electric tracks lowered over the windows and the lightning flashes outside vanished. The room was completely darkened.

Harold was aware of the change in the lighting, but did not attach any relevance to it. He heard, very softly, a door opening, but there was no light coming through it. Then something sharp pricked his skin and soon he began to feel himself spin, before he leaned to one side in his chair, unaware.

Two black-clothed men lifted him and placed him in the black wheelchair, rolling him out into the darkened hallway and through another door that brought them into the prep room.

The men placed Harold on the table, in the blackness, working soundlessly to get him ready for the body suit. They connected it to the preheated water and power, and then fit his earphones over his ears before adjusting the suit material over his head and attaching goggles.

It would take another thirty minutes for the water to adjust his surface skin temperature, brief enough for the ketamine injection to keep him cooperative. He would have no memory of any of this when the drug wore off, and he would be floating in the isolation tank by then, with all of his senses effectively cut off.

He would begin to hallucinate. With no sensory input there would be no visual, no auditory, no sensory data to understand his whereabouts, to know where he physically stopped and his environment started. He could not know what was true, what was real. He would have no sense of time.

Outside, the rain was coming down in sheets in the darkness, lit only by lightning in jagged strikes across the roiling cloud banks. A single figure, dressed in black from face to feet crouched low and scrambled across the roof to a vent near the center. He advanced a thin black tube into an opening he had made under the vent cover, pushing the tube down the pipe inside until the free end dropped down into the ceiling below, near the isolation tank.

On the small screen in his hands, amidst splattering raindrops, he could see two men rolling an object below his position, their bodies glowing green on the screen. They moved in a straight line, side-by-side, then at one point moved into single file for a distance, then stopped. One of them opened the cover of a container with what on the screen looked like a warm fluid signal coming from inside it. The men lifted a third person into the container and spent some time reaching in and out of it, adjusting something. Reese couldn't see what they were doing, but then the top was closed over the container and the two men turned back the way they had come.

One stopped and hurried back to the container, reaching out to a panel near its roof line. Blue lights flicked on, burning out the image on Reese's screen with the light. He switched over to ambient light setting and saw the egg-shaped tank, the catwalk, and the two men, one rolling a wheelchair ahead of him at the end of the catwalk, onto a ramp descending to floor level. Reese withdrew the black tube from the vent pipe once he saw the men leave through a door near the end of the room. He put it into his backpack, pulling out another item.

He unwrapped a coil of braided webbing and reached under the vent cover, wrapping the webbing around the seal of the cover. Then he backed away from it, feeding out the wires as he backed up. He pulled out a long rope from his backpack and looked around for a strong spot to clip one end.

A sturdy stair railing that went up over the edge of the roof wall and down to a fire escape leading to the ground below would work nicely. He wrapped the rope around the stair frame, securing the end, and stepped into the attached harness, readying to jump down into the building's ceiling.

Reese touched his right ear and spoke softly to the others, who were waiting around the corner for his signal. He snapped the button on the wires in his hand and instantly a ring of intense fire erupted from under the vent cover, burning bright and hot for thirty seconds, and then sputtering out. Reese ran over to the vent and struck it from below while the seal was still glowing. It flew upward off the naked end of the vent pipe, and he just caught it before it clattered to the rooftop. He laid it down and threw the free end of the rope into the vent pipe, hoisting himself over the edge and into the blue-lit darkness below. Not the ideal location, but it would have to do. He lowered himself quickly with the harness and surveyed the scene as he descended. Then he threw three canisters, one at a time, at strategic spots in the room. Smoke billowed out from the ends and started filling the far end of the room, where the two men had left it, with gray smoke.

He dropped the rest of the way down the rope, then stepped out of the harness and ran on the catwalk to the tank. Inside, he found Harold floating in the warm water. He lifted Harold and realized he was not responsive. Nothing he could do; so Reese lifted Harold over the edge of the tank, yanking at the wires attached to his suit. An audible alarm sounded and lights went on behind the glass window at the end of the room. The smoke was blocking their view of him for now, but not for long. Reese touched his right ear again and said in a soft voice, "now would be good."

Moments later, there was a loud crash at the end of the room with the glass window, a diversion from the real penetration at the opposite end. He could hear gunshots from the other side of the glass, while two black-clothed figures ran in from the opposite wall, carrying weapons, running toward where Reese was trying to get Harold free of his attachments.

One figure pointed up the ramp to the catwalk where Reese was lifting Harold off the railing, and the second figure lumbered up the ramp to help him. Reese looked around at the tank and saw the panel with the light switches. He reached up and flicked off the lights, and the entire room was thrown into blackness. The two men dragged Harold down the ramp and to the right, toward the door where they had entered.

Gun shots rang out, and they hustled to get Harold out of the line of fire. Right ahead, Root stuck her head through the doorway, and pointed down the hallway to a huge hole, where the outer door had been breached by a construction dump truck, sitting dieseling outside.

Root was firing cover fire for their exit, waiting for Shaw to withdraw when she could. A few minutes later, Shaw showed at the doorway, returning fire at the security guards running toward them in the darkness. Root grabbed her arm and pulled Shaw into the hallway, slamming the door closed, then disabling the card-key reader on the wall next to the door with a Hooligan bar.

Shaw and Root ran down the short hallway and caught up with Reese and Fusco, as they carried Harold down the path, in the rain, next to the giant dump truck, which blocked the view from the other side, and gave them cover to get to their vehicle. As they were loading Harold into the back of the van, security was coming around the left side of the building, shooting at their position. Everyone but Reese jumped in from the passenger sides and Shaw floored it, screeching tires as they raced down the driveway. Behind her, the dump truck was swinging out backwards, blocking the security vehicles, then rolling faster down the driveway toward them. Shaw slowed down. The truck got closer and she saw Reese in the driver's seat, using the truck to block fire from the security detail closing in behind them.

Ahead was a heavy metal security fence topped with concertina wire. Shaw held back and Reese overtook her position on the right, heading for the fence. The truck blasted through the fence, throwing the heavy metal halves end over end into the street. Shaw saw her opportunity and swung past Reese on the left side, as he was braking, just passing between the truck and one of the halves of the security gate as it slid to a stop in the street. Reese jammed on the brakes then and swung the truck to block as much of the rest of the street as possible, then leaped down from the cab and ran to the van. Root and Fusco aimed cover fire back toward the trapped security vehicles. As soon as Reese got in, they sped off, heading for a prearranged location, a dead zone with no overhead cameras, where they could break up the group and switch vehicles, unobserved.

Shaw and Reese stayed with Harold. Root left on her own, telling them she would make her way back to the safe house in New York. Fusco's car was parked outside. He would head back so he could go to the precinct in the morning, where he would catch up on some case work and cover for Reese's absence.

In the warehouse, Reese and Shaw attended to Harold, who was conscious but not responding normally to them. They looked at the body suit and the goggles, which they had removed from over his face.

"It's some kind of sensory deprivation setup," Reese whispered to Shaw, who nodded. She pulled back the head cover and found the earphones, detaching them from Harold's ears.

"Let's get this off him and change clothes in case they're tracking him." They cut the suit and ripped it away from him, then rubbed his skin down with towels, dressing him in scrubs for now. They had looked for any telltale surgical sites on his skin that could hide an implantable tracking device but didn't find anything.

Reese and Shaw moved him from the van to the back of a coffee truck, a "roach coach" in the vernacular. The back end where the vendor would normally be selling coffee and danish was staged to look like it could, but behind the fake spigots and wire trees of coffee cakes and chips was a space that could easily hold Harold, stretched out, without being detected.

They closed up the back, and put on sweatshirts with matching insignias, and baseball caps. Then they got into the truck, ready for the drive back to New York. They drove out of the warehouse the opposite way they had entered, obscuring their exit from prying eyes.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 24 - RUDE/AWAKENING**

* * *

 **Manhattan, July, 2014**

Harold could smell bacon cooking, and coffee. He wasn't a fan, but he did like the smell of it, perking. He heard the gurgling sound of the coffee maker discharging air into the system as it completed its cycle. And he heard a sizzling sound, smelling eggs frying on the stove. Was he late? Had he overslept? That was not like him. He was extraordinarily punctual. He never missed school. Perfect attendance.

Then he heard the sound of cars honking, and the sound of a siren wailing as a firetruck made its way through traffic to its destination. That wasn't right. There was no traffic in his town. People just didn't honk at one another, either. That would seem rude. Everyone knew one another–you just leaned out the window and said what you wanted to say as your cars came even with each other. His face showed a frown as he tried to think where the sound could be coming from.

Then he sat up, eyes wide open, inhaling a short, sharp breath. He couldn't grasp what was in front of him. In the slowest motion possible, he took in the scene in front of him. There was no sound at all, as his eyes panned from left to right. He noticed he was in a room lined with books, from floor to ceiling. There was nothing like this in his childhood home back in Iowa. He kept scanning, incrementally, in slow motion. The light was mild, like morning light, and he could see a table coming into view, with people sitting around it, in the middle of breakfast. He felt like he should know these people. They were turning toward him, and they seemed to be happy to see him. He started to shake his head, not sure what was happening, where he actually was.

Suddenly, everything sped up, and the people were right in front of him, noisy, calling his name, the noise throwing him backward against his pillow, startled. They were all talking at once, smiling, asking him a dozen questions at once. He could just look back at them in wonder, as a smile slowly began to trace across his face and he said out loud to them "I thought you were all dead." They stopped talking for a moment, confused, then a dog with large ears jumped up onto his bed, lying down next to him, and resting his head on his thigh, sighing through black lips at him. Harold was speechless. They were all there–Shaw, Root, Fusco, and Reese. Oh, and Bear, too.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 25 - MONGOLIAN OUTREACH**

* * *

 **Mongolian Steppes, September, 2014**

The wind was blowing hard across the grassland. An old man with deeply-grooved dark brown skin rode past on a stout small horse, with a small child sitting in front of him near the withers. The child was dressed in many layers of bright clothing against the chilly air. The horse seemed to know the way, and carried them with short quick steps along the dusty road.

Jules sat in an old white truck, clipboard in hand, writing numbers in the boxes of a table on the paper. Statistics. They were just finishing collecting data for the home office in Paris. Another day or two should finish their work here.

The area had suffered a third year of what was known as a dzud, when incredibly severe winter followed an exceedingly dry summer. The animals on which these people depended had begun to die by the thousands in the fierce cold and high snow, unable to find food, and the herdsmen unable to afford enough hay to get them through the winter. Entire herds of animals had succumbed to starvation and temperatures of 60-below zero, with wind chills far worse. There was suffering all around. Children were malnourished because there was no money in the family to buy food with the herds gone. There was disease, too, and displacement as those who could leave ventured out looking for work in the overcrowded cities. There were no jobs for these unskilled workers, who lived in squalor at the edges of the few cities.

Humanitarian groups had come in after the winter, to try to get the herdsmen to lay up hay before the coming winter, but not every area of the country could grow enough in the hot, unusually dry summer. The market for hay had driven up prices, and these people did not have the money to buy it. Some groups had come in offering loans to the herders, but it was not a long-term solution, and if another dzud was on the way, they could not hope to repay the loans.

As Jules wrote her numbers neatly in the boxes, her phone rang and when she answered she was momentarily confused. It was her dear friend, Harold, back in the U.S.. There was an odd sound in his voice and she could not tell if it was him, or if their connection was just bad. He asked her how she was getting along, and she told him briefly what she was doing here in the field. There was a silence on the other end, and she frowned.

"Are you still there, Harold?' He said yes, and then he asked her if he could meet with her when she returned to the States.

"I'll be flying in at the end of the week, Harold. I'd love to see you. Is everything alright?" She waited and there was silence on the other end again. Then, Harold told her that something had happened, and that he needed her professional advice. He wasn't at liberty to go into the details at that time, but he would greatly appreciate her help. Jules said of course, she would get there as soon as she could. They could meet in Manhattan at the end of the week. She would call him when she got in. Harold thanked her, and apologized for interrupting her day. She told him not to be ridiculous, that she was always delighted to hear from him, but he had already hung up.

"That was odd," she said out loud, shaking her head and frowning. Something was not right. Harold was sharp, a keen intellect, always funny and charming around her. Yes, something was very wrong. That feeling persisted with her as she finished her work over the next two days. The trip to the capital, Ulaanbaatar, where she boarded her flight seemed to be especially long. And later, as she flew out over the Pacific, stopping in Japan, then the five hour layover to get the next flight to L.A., she felt a sense of growing concern for her friend. She was exhausted by the time she got to JFK in New York. She hopped a cab and leaned back as it lurched and bucked its way through traffic, into Manhattan.

Jules called Harold on her way in, before they got to the Mid-Town Tunnel, and he told her where to meet him. He had gotten a room for her at a tiny, exclusive hotel, and told her to get some rest. He would meet with her in the morning for breakfast at the hotel. They could order room service and sit and talk, catch up with things. She thought he sounded better. Perhaps she had worried for nothing.

She gave the address to the cabbie, and he hacked through midtown traffic, blowing his horn, which bleated weakly, likely from over-use, she thought. At last, she arrived, and she paid the cabbie, tipping him well, and he got out to get her bags from the trunk.

A uniformed doorman tipped his hat, and called for a porter. Her bags were whisked into the lobby. She noticed the smell of the place. It was wonderful, after the last months in the Mongolian grasslands, visiting the small herds. She couldn't get the smell of dung out of her things. The porter and doorman were discreet, if they had noticed.

She went to the desk and told them her name. They smiled immediately, and said she just needed to show her ID, and sign in. Everything else was taken care of. She smiled gratefully, and followed the porter to the elevator. He opened her door for her, and she entered a large room, with very expensive finishes. The porter placed her bags inside, showed her where everything was, and asked if there was anything else she desired. She smiled and said no, tipping him well. He left her, closing the door quietly behind him.

She just stood for a moment in the quiet, with the echoes of the street noise fading to a hum in her head, enjoying the sights, the smells, the sounds of this beautiful space. What a change from where she had been standing just eighteen hours ago. She grabbed a small backpack with her personal items in it, and went into the marble-lined bathroom, running the shower while she pulled off layers of clothing, turning up her nose at the pieces as she sniffed them. It was good that she had tipped everyone well. She reeked.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 26 - ABYSS**

* * *

Jules was up early the next morning, showering once again, since it had felt so great the first time. She was impressed with the thickness of the towels. She rubbed her skin with coconut oil, brushed her teeth, and dressed in the best clean clothes she had with her. She had left them out to air overnight. It would be okay. Harold would understand. She gave him a quick ring when she thought it was a decent hour to call. He sounded like he had been awake early, too, and they made plans to meet within the hour.

While she waited, Jules ordered coffee and inquired whether they had Sencha tea. Happily, they did. She looked over the menu and while she was finally deciding what to order, the door buzzed. She jumped up to get it, and when she swung open the door, she was struck by Harold's appearance. If you didn't know him like she did, you might not realize the difference. But she could see right away that something was wrong. The light had gone out of his eyes. He looked thin, drawn, pale, almost blank to her.

She pulled him into the room, and gave him a hug, but he barely responded. It was not like Harold to be so distant. That feeling of dis-ease was coming back. She helped him with his coat, and walked him to the couch to sit down. He looked into her eyes, but there was something missing in his eyes as he started to speak. He told her he was concerned she might be hungry, and asked her to order whatever she wanted from the menu. He would just have a cup of tea and some eggs with toast. Jules put in the order and then returned to sit with him, laying her hand across his forearm, and looking up into his face.

"Harold, I have never seen you like this. Please tell me what has happened." Harold hesitated for a few moments. He had thought long and hard about what he could tell Jules. She had known him a very long time as relationships went for him. But she knew nothing about his activities with the Machine, or the rest of his team. He was worried for her safety if he told her any of it. So, he had made a cover story about how he was being haunted about the death of his best friend, Nathan, a few years ago. It was all coming back to him, giving him terrible nightmares. She would understand. She would be able to reach him, where the others he had consulted could not.

Harold had been drifting since his release from capture two months ago. The team had rallied around him, tried to distract him, cheer him up, do anything to get him out of this emotional abyss into which he had fallen.

They had debriefed him as he began to recover from the effects of the isolation tank. He learned that the story of his Machine becoming disabled and squeezing down into a suitcase to avoid destruction by Samaritan was untrue. Root had in fact put together a team of hackers who had succeeded in deploying some "customized" stolen servers in a Samaritan server farm. Their most important function was to reset the alert signal to 'irrelevant' each time a team member was discovered by Samaritan. That blinded Samaritan from seeing their activities as threatening or noteworthy. They were off Samaritan's radar as long as the servers remained undiscovered. Root and the hacker team had installed a few other circumventions in the stolen servers, part of the plan that would be put to use when the time came to break Samaritan.

And, of course, the story of the team's annihilation at the hands of Samaritan had been a lie, a ruse to try to convince Harold that all was lost, to pry out the location of the Machine. The team was safe, busy with their numbers that never seemed to stop coming from the Machine. Harold should have felt relief, gratefulness–something. But there was nothing, no emotion inside, though he tried to put on a good show for the others. He couldn't seem to respond to anything the way he used to. He knew he was distant. He didn't want to be. He couldn't seem to feel anything, to care about anything. His emotional life was just gone.

He started talking to Jules, explaining what he had decided to tell her as his cover story. She listened carefully to him, without interrupting, as he painted the picture of that day, on the boat dock, when Nathan was killed in the explosion, and he was injured. Her eyes were kind and concerned as he went on. He could sense her empathy for him.

The door buzzed and the breakfast cart was there. A uniformed man rolled the cart in and set up the food on the table for them. Harold tipped him and the man left them to have their breakfast. Harold sipped some Sencha tea, and broke the yolks of his eggs, dipping torn pieces of toast into the dark orange yolks dripping down the whites.

Jules studied him for a few minutes. She leaned back and seemed to be considering something. She took a few bites of her food while she decided how to proceed.

"Harold, is there anything else that you aren't telling me?" she asked at last, leaning back in her seat, wiping her mouth with the cloth napkin. She sipped some of the delicious coffee from the full carafe on the table. Harold was not making eye contact with her. He leaned his head down resting his forehead in the palm of his left hand. She noticed that his hands were shaking slightly. His face had lost what little color it had.

"I'm very sorry, Jules. I should never have imposed on you like this. You have barely gotten back, and I am keeping you from getting home." Harold started to rise to leave, but Jules held his sleeve.

"Harold, I'm here because I care about you. I can tell that something has happened, but the story you just told me is not it. If you can't trust me after all these years, Harold, who can you trust?" She waited for him to speak.

"It's not a matter of trust, Jules. It's your safety. I am worried that I can put you at risk if I give you the real story." She nodded.

"Harold, considering how and where I spend my days, don't you think I have already come to terms with my safety in the world?" He seemed to understand her point. But, he was still hesitant to speak.

"Why don't we handle this in a different way? How about if I bring you to my house, just for the weekend. We can be away, in a quiet, beautiful place. I can cook for you, and I can treat you, right there in my house. It's very relaxing, and the great thing about it is, you don't have to talk at all, if you don't want to. It works when you talk, but it works even better when you don't." She smiled at him, and he lifted his eyes to hers. She felt like a little of the old Harold was back there, deep behind those eyes, staring out at her, but not ready to be reached. He nodded, and she smiled.

They finished breakfast together, and she packed, while they ordered a car to bring them up to the town nearest her house. She needed to stop and pick up some supplies on the way home. They could do a little shopping, before they went the rest of the way to her house. It was settled. Harold excused himself and went down to the front desk to take care of the bill, and used the time to call Reese.

"Mr. Reese, I am heading upstate for the weekend. There is some business I need to attend to. You can reach me if there is anything urgent. I'll be back on Monday." The porter went up to the room and collected the bags when the black Town Car pulled up in front of the hotel. Harold and Jules walked through the lobby, and out into the waiting car.

The sun was shining, and the sky was deep blue as they drove north through the crisp autumn day. The leaves hadn't started to turn yet, but soon the red would start to show up on the hills as the leaves responded to the signals from the approaching fall. Soon the hills would be ablaze with red, yellow, and orange leaves. Jules was hungry for the display. It made her feel like she was home. She looked out the window as the car sped northward. Harold kept to himself. Jules felt that once he was in her hands, in her house, she could change all that.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 27 - LEFT BEHIND**

* * *

 **Bethesda, Maryland, September, 2014**

In a dimly lit room with concrete walls, a figure bowed forward, sitting in a chair, with arms bound behind. In front was a glass wall, but nothing was visible from this side of the glass. The room was empty otherwise, though there was a table with another chair there, at the ready.

On the far side of the glass, a white-haired man stood looking at the figure seated on the chair.

"And what shall we talk about today, my dear?" His cold eyes looked into the room at Grace, and he smiled with his face.


	5. Part 4

**CHAPTER 28 - IF GUNS WENT OFF IN HERE**

* * *

 **Manhattan, September, 2014**

Reese and Shaw were seated in a busy diner keeping an eye on a three-some in a booth nearby. Judging by their faces and body language, two of them were pressuring the third who was sitting with his arms locked across his chest, back straight, jaw set, body rigid. No backing down for this one. Reese motioned to Shaw and whispered "this could get ugly." She nodded and they both shifted in their seats, looking around them to see their options in the diner at the height of lunch hour. Every seat was taken. There were tables of old folks, women with kids, infants in strollers, a line of business people up front ordering at the counter for a quick take-out lunch.

There was just one door at the front to exit, and a line of people were stacked up at the cash register right there, waiting to pay, blocking access if people started running. If guns went off in here, it would be carnage.

Reese tipped his head toward the three-some, and he and Shaw got up from their seats, walking slowly toward them, watching for any signs of escalation. Rigid Man was seated opposite the other two, in the middle of the bench seat, glaring, and starting to reach across the table. Reese got there first and pushed his reaching shoulder downward, hard, pinning it on the table, without drawing his weapon yet.

But, on the opposite side, the man on the end was already reaching toward his belt line, below table-level, where his hands could not be seen. In a single motion, Shaw had lifted a wooden cane hanging on the coat tree next to an elderly man, swinging the cane-tip in a high arc overhead, slashing down on the wrist under the table. The force of the strike popped the arm laterally toward them, and Shaw could see a hand with a glock in it. Its owner cried out in stunned pain, as his hand opened, numb and weak from the blow. The glock slid down his thigh, off the seat and skidded across the floor. Instantly, Shaw swung the cane up high again and slashed down at an angle onto his collarbone, throwing him forward splinting in pain, tipping him laterally even further as he grabbed the injured right shoulder. Shaw swung the cane back once more, gripping the tip end this time, and reached with the hook behind the man's neck, yanking him out of his seat to the floor, onto his bad shoulder. He lay there, writhing, while Shaw scooped the glock from the floor. People around them at the closest tables were beginning to react, fear in their faces.

Reese, gun drawn now so only the fallen man's partner could see it, slid into the booth next to him, warning him not to go for his weapon. He reached inside the man's jacket and relieved him of his matching glock. Nearby patrons were turning around, toward the sound of the commotion, and Reese stood up facing them with his badge in the air.

"Detective Riley, NYPD. Please stay seated. Thank you for your cooperation."

The customers, initially frightened, began to look around at each other, then started laughing, relief on their faces. One after another, they pulled out cellphones, snapping pictures of the scene, unfazed now with the take-down unfolding right in front of them.

"You've gotta love New Yorkers," Reese said softly. It was like they were in front-row seats watching the Yankees or the Mets play.

Shaw searched the downed man for any other weapons, turning her face away from the photo-grabbing crowd. She held the tip of the cane over his spine, with force, to encourage him not to move. Then she zip-tied his wrists behind him and grabbed a pant leg down low, crossing the ankle over the top of the other. She walked back a table and replaced the cane gently onto the coat tree, nodding to its owner, who slapped his thigh, grinning.

"Nice work, little lady." Shaw rolled her eyes as she turned back to Rigid Man, who was rubbing his shoulder, watching Reese cuff the man opposite him in the booth. Shaw leaned over the table to speak softly to Reese.

"Let's get these guys out of here. We're attracting too much publicity. We can call Fusco to pick up these losers, and have a little talk with our friend here." Reese nodded, and got up, pulling the handcuffed man with him, patting him down when he was standing, to check for any other weapons. Shaw helped the fallen man to get up and then motioned for Rigid Man to get out of the booth next. She checked him for weapons quickly before they all walked forward to the door, with Shaw and Reese using the men to shield their features from the still-snapping guests.

The line at the cash register had evaporated, customers scattering quickly once they had realized there was an incident going on, and a gun was involved. The two of them were able to walk the other three, unharried, to the parking lot outside and Shaw motioned toward the car.

"Who are you people?" Rigid Man finally asked. Shaw stopped to face him.

"We've been watching Mo and Curley back there for a while. Not the sharpest tools in the shed. Gun running, extortion, murder-for-hire. Then you showed up. Care to share? What are you doing with those two?"

"Hey, look, I'm not _with_ them. _They_ came after _me_."

"Convince me," Shaw said to him, putting him into the back seat of the car, next to Bear, who sniffed the man and sat, alert, waiting for commands. She bent down, looking at Bear and giving the Dutch command " _Bewaken_ ", telling him to "guard". She left the back seat door open, and kept an eye on the other two men while Reese was on the phone with Fusco, arranging for a pick-up.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 29 - ROOT'S ROADTRIP**

* * *

 **Bethesda, Maryland, September, 2014**

"So, what is it exactly that you are proposing, Miss Groves?" a man's voice asked.

"Well, you are familiar with a certain man in New York City who helped you with an annoying death-threat some time ago. Do you recall?" Root smiled in her friendly-mischievous way. He hesitated for a moment, not certain if he should divulge anything further, then shrugged slightly and nodded to her.

"Yes, John was very–persistent."

"Yes, he can be that way."

"Don't keep me in suspense, Miss Groves."

"We have created another team here in D.C., just like the one that helped you in New York and we're looking for someone to–run it. You have the skills. You're good with comput–"

"I'll do it," he said, simply. And Root nodded, cocking her head, with that smile again.

"I thought you would. Good. Are you ready to meet more of your team?"

"Bring it on."

The door opened and three people, two men and a woman, walked into the meeting room. Root stood up and walked over, standing with them. The three were former New York "saves" themselves. The woman was a brash young grifter, who had been in a number of scrapes that had nearly gotten her killed. But she was quick-thinking and resourceful, exactly the type of person they needed for tactical support in D.C..

One of the men was former Army, who had gotten mixed up with a local small-time crime boss when he returned from his deployment in Afghanistan. As it turned out, he was trying to support the wife and child of his best friend, who had been killed during their deployment together. His buddy had switched seats with him in their Hum-v and had been killed when the vehicle took a direct hit. It should have been him, not his buddy, who died. He was doing odd jobs, whatever he could find, to support them, but it wasn't enough. He had to make more money; but, trying to get it had sent him down a one-way street the wrong way.

The second man was a multiple "save" by Harold's team. He was unlucky when he tried to steal from his employers. They always caught him, and Reese had saved his life three times so far. On the other hand, he had done a little work for them when the rest of the team was out on an assignment, and they had to stash him in the library with Bear to avoid being killed by the latest offended party. He was able to use Finch's computer to do some forensic accounting work, his specialty, to help them close their case.

Finding the three again, and setting them up in Washington with new careers had been simpler than the team had expected. The three seemed to be compatible right from the start, and this new opportunity to turn their lives around, and perhaps avoid an untimely death if they continued on their previous path, seemed to be motivation enough for now. They had already started to take over the reins, and they were ready to meet their new, hand-picked boss.

"Mr. Logan Pierce, this is Harper Rose, head of Tactical Support; Leon Tao, Forensic Accounting; and Joey Durbin, head of Security." Pierce shook hands with the three, and Root had them all sit down together, to watch them bring Pierce up to date with the work already underway in Washington. The three took turns briefly describing their scope of operations, and current status. Root was impressed with the professionalism and sense of camaraderie already apparent. She could tell that these team members already liked each other, and respected each other's capabilities. The Machine had chosen well.

Now, Root was interested in seeing how Logan Pierce responded to his role. He was well-known for being erratic and unconventional, but he had amassed a huge fortune, with many spin-off companies, by starting a successful social media company.

He had recently sold his controlling interest for a tidy sum, and now he was sitting around, feeling bored, without something complicated to keep his attention. It would be interesting for Root to see if this was the right new project for him. The Machine seemed to think so. With the proper change in attitude, he might make a remarkable asset and colleague, just like a number of Harold's team members she could name.

Root would stay for a few days to smooth the transition and collect her impressions, before she headed to her next meetings: in Chicago, then on to Denver, to LA, Seattle and finally, to Miami. The Machine was keeping Root busy with a list of candidates for positions in groups She was forming, one by one, across the country. There was a particular hierarchy to the organizational structure that had proved successful in New York, and was being replicated elsewhere. Soon, the country would be blanketed by a network of security cells under the Machine's watchful eye, that would expand the reach of Her organization and match the strength of their chief adversary, Samaritan. The time was fast approaching for a showdown between the two systems, and they had to be ready for it.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 30 - SHE COULD SEE HE WAS IN TROUBLE**

* * *

 **Upstate New York, September, 2014**

The black Town Car rocked slightly on the dusty road leading to her house, set back from the gravel, in among well-trimmed trees. Evening-time had begun to settle into the valley below, throwing deep shadow over the lake. Soon the fog would begin to form over the water as the air above it cooled in the autumn night. It would flow up the steep slope behind the house, where the wide, deep lawn gave off to the densely-crowded trees.

The fog would wind among the trunks as it climbed, overtaking the grass, obscuring the hedges, flowing in a milky white tide onto the back deck. It would carry the scent of pines that shared the hill with oaks, maples, and birch, and the earthy smell of rich loam from decades of their fallen leaves decaying in the deep woods. Tonight would be a clear, cloudless night and the heat of the day would shine out to the stars, leaving the night air crisp and cold.

The car rolled to a stop, and three doors opened. A uniformed driver exited first, reaching back to hold the door for Jules, who slid out easily, laughing in delight about something he had said. Then, the driver helped Harold with the few sacks of groceries he had stowed at his feet for the drive from town. On the way up they had stopped to shop for some things to replenish perishables, since Jules had been away overseas for the last three months.

She had just returned yesterday, meeting Harold in Manhattan, then convincing him, when she saw his condition, to return here with her for the weekend. She was sure that she could sort out what had happened to him once they were together in her house. He had only said that something had happened and that he needed her help. Beyond that, she knew little. He was evasive with her, and she couldn't imagine what would have caused such a profound change since she had last seen him.

The three walked the packages into the kitchen, and their driver went back out to bring the suitcases in from the trunk. Jules insisted that he rest for a little while, and eat something with them before he drove back. The two had started a lively conversation on the ride up from Manhattan, comparing notes about cities they had each visited through the years. Theirs was a comfortable, relaxed conversation, as though they were long-time friends meeting up unexpectedly with one another.

Winston was from St. Lucia, but had lived in England and France, before settling in the U.S.. He had an easy smile, an Island accent, and he laughed often. Jules sensed a joyful kindness around him, and a love of children, that belied his imposing, powerful build. He had told her that he was a grandfather to six, and that he loved singing in the choir in his church and playing soccer with the grandchildren in the park near his home. He had even brought out his phone with pictures of the grandkids that he showed to them. Jules took the time to remark about each one, and Harold could see the smile in her eyes as she studied each photo. Harold took note, but did not comment. On the way up to the house, Harold had watched the two converse, but did not engage himself. He was silent on the ride, and content to just observe. It was a symptom of what ailed him–this hole in him where his feelings used to be.

When it came time for Winston to head back, Harold had walked out to the car with him, thanking him for driving such a long way, and making the trip so enjoyable. He had given Winston an envelope with five hundred-dollar bills in it for a tip, thanked him again, and then had turned away to limp back to the house. Winston had called goodbye and a thank you after him, but Harold only tipped his head, and had not turned back to acknowledge. Winston had thought it odd, but smiled anyway, and got in to drive back on the winding route to the Thruway.

Jules was busy inside opening up the house from its slumber during her trip. It was a well-rehearsed system to shut it down, since she was often gone for up to nine months at a time. The water had to be turned back on at the house main supply, and the refrigerator needed to be plugged in to chill. She ran around opening taps and flushing toilets once the shutoff valves were opened, to refresh the water in the pipes. And she opened a few windows and the french doors in the living room for awhile to air out the rooms.

In the guest bedroom, where Harold would sleep, Jules turned down the bedding, and plumped the pillows. From the closet shelf she pulled down an extra blanket to lay across the end of the bed, in case the house got too chilly for him overnight. There was a small bedside table with a cut-glass vase on it, and she made a simple arrangement of a single large flower clipped from the tiger lilies still in bloom outside, with greenery from some of the sprigs of fresh herbs she had bought in town. The warming herbs gave off a calming scent that would linger through the night in his room.

It was already getting chilly outside, a good night for a fire in the fireplace. She stacked some wood and put the kindling below the iron holder with the logs, then reached in with a long wooden matchstick to light the kindling. Soon there was a dancing flame spreading up over the bark of the logs, and a little gray smoke drafting up the chimney.

She went back to the kitchen and unpacked the rest of the groceries, putting away the few dry goods, and placing the ingredients for tonight's meal on the counter near the sink. Cooking had always been a pleasure for her. The chopping and slicing, the sauteing and roasting, all the steps that she followed were like a moving meditation. And the food that she created in her kitchen was designed to heal, to nurture and comfort, just as much as any of the other forms she practiced. Each ingredient had a purpose, whether for its specific taste, or its color, its aroma, or its feel on the palate. Sometimes it was the comfort it provided to settle the worried mind, and sometimes she chose it for its lightness and satisfying clarity. Like music, food was a symphony, a performance that could be crafted in endless variety for different tastes. It gave her great pleasure to share it with others.

She had given Harold a cup of his favorite Sencha green tea and pointed him to a plateful of crackers that he could dress as he wished with small bites from a tray of cut meats they had brought back from the butcher. There was smoked trout, and there were thinly-sliced rounds of vegetables, watermelon radish, some goat cheese, and sharp cheddar. There were small chunks of tasty apple, some homemade cranberry chutney from a freshly-opened canning jar cool from the keeping room in the cellar. There was a small dish of pungent horseradish sauce to drizzle over the meat or fish. She let him graze while she attended to dinner.

As she watched him build his cracker snacks, she thought back to what had brought them here tonight. While she had been in her final week in Mongolia, on a medical mission, she had received a call from Harold. He had sounded strange to her, and had told her that something had happened, but he couldn't tell her the details on the phone; he was asking to consult with her, professionally, to get her advice and counsel. She had immediately agreed to meet him when she returned to New York.

But when she was sitting with him a few days later, back from her trip, he had been unable to bring himself to tell her the truth, afraid, he had told her, that if she knew too much, it would somehow put her in grave danger. Jules had known Harold for many years, but had no idea what he could be involved in that would make him worry this way. She could see that he was in trouble. She had had an idea of how she could proceed, and had made him an offer that she knew would appeal to him.

 _"Why don't we handle this in a different way?" she had asked. "How about if I bring you to my house, just for the weekend. We can be away, in a quiet, beautiful place. I can cook for you, and I can treat you, right there in my house. It's very relaxing, and the great thing about it is, you don't have to talk at all, if you don't want to. It works when you talk, but it works even better when you don't." She had smiled at him, and he had lifted his eyes to hers. She could see a little of the old Harold was back there, deep behind those eyes, staring out at her, but not ready to be reached. He had nodded, yes, to her offer._

* * *

 **CHAPTER 31 - WORDS WERE NOT REQUIRED**

* * *

Harold had never been here, in Jules home. He wandered from the kitchen into a library, off the living room where the fireplace and the large, L-shaped leather couch sat. He was looking at shelf after shelf of books on wide-ranging subjects. Something about a room full of books made him feel calm and more relaxed inside. It was hopeful.

One shelf held language books, to learn French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Mongolian and others. There were books on reading and writing in Sanskrit and Arabic. Another shelf held dozens of books on martial arts, T'ai chi, Qi gong, and several different styles of Yoga.

Then there was a very large section on healing and health. The usual large reference texts in traditional Internal Medicine, Surgery, Pediatrics, Ob/gyn, Trauma, and Emergency Medicine were equally balanced by shelves given over to sound therapy, energy work, vibrational healing, brain wave entrainment, and dozens of nutritional philosophies. She had books on wilderness medicine, a thick military medicine handbook, another on emergency war surgery, and one on remote rescue and extraction techniques. Another section was for healing properties of herbs and plants. There were books on architecture, furniture design, on oriental sword-making, on handwork like embroidery, weaving, knitting, and intricate hand sewing techniques. There was a collection of more than a hundred cookbooks; and there was a section of children's books, beautifully illustrated.

Another bookcase held a large collection of music CDs. She had jazz going back to performers from the '40s and '50s. There were balladeers, instrumentalists, singers who sang in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Another bookcase was filled with CDs of music for healing, meditation, reiki, and sound therapy using crystal singing bowls, gongs, wooden flute, nature sounds. Harold took it all in, and would have smiled, if he were in his normal state.

The breadth of subjects was remarkable, but predictable if one spent any time getting to know Jules. Harold had known her for more than fifteen years now. She would call him when she was returning from a trip abroad, and they would get together for a play, a concert, or an exhibition at one of their favorite museums. It was a comfortable friendship between two people leading very separate, consuming lives. And she was blissfully unaware of the Machine, his team, and the dangerous work they did every day.

Jules usually spent months overseas on humanitarian missions in some of the most desperate situations in the world. She did not speak about it very much, but Harold could see it in her eyes when things had been particularly rough on some mission. He was certain that there were times when she had wanted to leave it all behind, when the frustration of picking up the pieces after another disaster became unbearable. But there was something that had always pulled at her, and made her go back. What she had seen and experienced over there hadn't made her bitter or hard. It had made her quiet. She watched. She had an uncanny sense about people. She was deep, and solid, and had a way of making you feel safe and protected in her presence.

He could hear her in the kitchen, and wandered back there. She was sauteing onion, garlic and shiitake mushrooms in olive oil, before adding handfuls of greens that she had washed and spun nearly dry. Another pan on the wide gas stove held a steaming layer of chicken breast slices in a fragrant gravy. Fingerling potatoes were cooked and waiting nearby. And there were some tiny new carrots cooked, with tarragon butter sauce glistening over them.

Once the greens had wilted, she splashed them with a dash of thick, sweet, balsamic vinegar, and crumbled goat cheese over the top, then plated up the food, and they moved to the dining room table. She poured an oaky white wine into stubby pale green glasses, and they sat down together facing each other across the table. Her sleeves on the long-sleeved shirt she was wearing were rolled up to her elbows in typical style, revealing lean muscular arms as she laid out the silverware, napkins, salt and pepper.

She lowered the lights overhead, and the light from the fireplace caught Harold's attention. His eyes were drawn to it. Jules aimed a remote controller at a cabinet in the living room and pressed some buttons on it; a black box powered up on a shelf and music began to play. It was a guitarist she loved, from Canada, playing gentle, quiet songs in flamenco style, fingers softly plucking each note as though he were there speaking to them in guitar language. It was tender, this language, and entered the chest and throat directly through the skin, before speaking in hushed tones to the head. The music took the edge off, drained away some of the tension Harold felt about what might come. He sipped some wine and found its notes a good companion to the tastes of the meal. He settled in a bit, feeling himself able to relax a little more now.

Harold asked Jules about what she had been doing in Mongolia, and she started to explain about the dzud, the weather phenomenon that was unique to their part of the world, and that had caused such a humanitarian crisis.

Jules had gone on a medical mission, and then stayed on an extra month to gather data for her home office in France to help with planning and logistics. It was during the last week of her final month there that Harold had called her and asked to meet with her on her return.

When she had opened the door of her hotel room in mid-town Manhattan, it was immediately clear that something had happened to Harold, something serious. The light was gone from his eyes. He was thin and listless; he had tried to pass it off as a recurrence of his sadness for the loss of his best friend, Nathan Ingram, in the ferry boat bombing some years back, but Jules had known right away that that was not what had made Harold so emotionally distant, and unreachable.

She knew immediately that she needed to bring him to her home, where she would be able to use her hands-on skills to establish a deeper connection with him, to draw him out of the isolation. This was the deep work that she did. This was the gift she had been blessed with, that could reach around the fear and the resistance her patient might have at the outset; to weave gently into the fabric of the patient's trust, raising him up, supporting him, then guiding him back from the darkness, the alone-ness. She could feel the emptiness around Harold, as though everything she knew about him had been stripped free of him, and he was gray and blank; so different from the charming, brilliant, thoughtful soul she knew him to be. It was time to get to work.

The first bit, the transition, was important to get right. And they were in the throes of that right now. She knew that Harold, though he had known her for many years and trusted her, would feel some worry, some trepidation, about what she was planning. He was a very private person after all, and there would be a fear that he would have to pass through, a fear that he would be laid open, handled in some unacceptable way. He would be afraid of losing control. It was important to go slowly and build a sense of trust with him, so that he could see what was coming, step by step, and allow it. He would not need to talk openly about what had happened, for her approach to work. Her work was done on a deeper, feeling level, where words were not required.

She could feel that the music was calming to him. And the herbs that she had chosen to add to their meal had filled the house with a calming aroma that would also work on him, without his knowledge, and bring a more peaceful mood. The food itself, potato, carrot and gravy, would comfort him with its chemistry, slowly erasing more of his fear. Layer by layer she was creating the environment that she wanted for him. He did not need to know how she did it, just that he was incrementally more peaceful inside, more settled.

Jules often used music to work the transition. The sound was one form of vibrational treatment. She chose it just as carefully as every other aspect of her treatments. It reached out to enfold the patient, and created a space where time suspended for a bit, so that she could enter and make further inroads, layer by layer, with her other techniques.

Jules leaned back in her chair, and took slightly deeper breaths. She began to attend to the inhalation, then the longer exhalation, as her attention focused on her own breathing. When she was ready, she re-directed her attention to another spot, so very close by, that had already saturated with Harold's energy, energy that he unknowingly radiated out from across the table. Detecting it was the most delicate of sensations, barely there, easily missed in the distractions of living in the busy world. It was like the soft lighting of a butterfly on the skin, a small pressure, and a sense of movement from the beating of the fragile wings. She felt its movement as a subtle Flow, in a place just behind her eyes, deep in her brain, that gave her what she called internal "knowing". It was a fuller sense of someone in her presence, more than what could be gleaned with the usual five. She let the Flow open, and began to eavesdrop on him, to feel the deeper sense of Harold's state of mind:

 _It was like a held breath in the blackness. There was a terrifying sense of falling, falling without end; nothing to grip, nothing below to slow the fall, only blackness everywhere. It was like screaming in panic, but with no sound. She could feel something like smothering in silence, as though wrapped with something foreign, mummified while still alive. She was floating in fear._

She broke out of it, pulling in a deep, sharp breath, and looked at Harold. He showed no outward sign of this torture inside. It was as though he had suppressed it, blocked it from his awareness, to be able to handle the terror of whatever had happened to him.

She would need to connect with that deeper terror, allow it to bubble up out of him, to release its grip on Harold. It would be difficult for him, but it was the only way. The timing was important, and it was early yet in the transition. There were more layers to add before he would allow moving forward.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 32 - ARE YOU IN PAIN, HAROLD?**

* * *

They finished their meal together, with the soft music playing around them, and the lights low so they could enjoy the fire in the fireplace. Harold insisted on clearing the dishes to the kitchen, and did a fine job of rinsing them and loading the dishwasher. When she found him bending over the open machine, she didn't have the heart to tell him that she never used it, didn't even know if it still worked.

She was always content to fill her square dishpan with soapy water and wash her few dishes by hand. It made her smile. No dishwasher, no air conditioner, nothing fancy in her home. She was used to living without, and it somehow felt extravagant to have and use those amenities. She was grateful for electricity and running water, indoor plumbing. The rest of the fancy things she did not really need.

Jules offered more tea to Harold, and a slice of apple tart for dessert. It was rich and buttery at the crust, with some sharper and some sweeter notes from the apple layered above. A small slice was plenty. Neither of them usually had dessert, but tonight it felt right. They moved into the living room and, passing the library, it reminded Harold of the books he had seen there.

"I was quite taken by the range of subjects in your library, Jules," he remarked as they walked toward the living room.

"We are life-long learners, aren't we, Harold?"

"I wouldn't want it any other way." He limped to one of the upholstered chairs that had a small ottoman in front of it. That was more comfortable for him than dangling his legs from a couch. He was happy, too, that the back was high and angled a bit, to support his neck. All of these things he had never had to consider in the past, but since the ferry bombing when he was injured, his physical frailties had made him more keenly aware of his limitations.

"Are you in pain, Harold?" Jules asked as she saw his halting gait, and choice of seats.

"Just my usual spots."

"Tell me – perhaps I can help with one of the treatments I do. This is my specialty, after all."

Jules watched him lower himself into the seat. Harold's movements were ratcheting rather than smooth, and he had difficulty with precise small motions. With larger ones, he had more time and space to make corrections on the way to the destination. But small movements meant there was less time, and finer control was needed to get to the desired point precisely.

She could almost feel what it would be like to have that sensation, to move through an arc with twitches and surges. And she could sense the change in the muscle fibers that would result from the chronic restriction in his range of motions. She could picture what it would feel like in her hands if she were to move his limbs, slowly, slowly, finding the outer edges to the movement that his muscles and joints would allow.

"I don't really focus on it very much, Jules. It is there all the time, and I just – accept it." Harold adjusted himself on the chair, and raised his legs to rest on the ottoman. He was stiff from the long ride up in the car today. It would be good to elevate his legs for a little while. He leaned back in the seat, and found himself quite comfortable.

Jules looked at the fireplace and saw that the logs had burned down most of the way already, and she went to add more logs, shaking the burned ones with the poker to encourage the flames again. While she was up, she went to the player and put another selection in. This one was different than the previous one. It was an instrumental: breathy, ethereal, dream-like sound that made her feel like she was traveling through deep space when she listened to it. It would be good background to any conversation they had. And if there was little, it would fill the space with more space.

She returned to sit on the leather couch, facing Harold, but without crowding him. He was leaning back with his eyes open, but not focused on anything in particular. If she didn't intrude with intricate conversation just now, the music would work its way underneath him, begin to carry him slowly and gently forward like a friendly river. Jules began to speak in a low tone. It was just a meandering story, told in a voice that was soothing, even mesmerizing, so that Harold's breathing deepened and his eyes began to close. He could hear her story at the edges of his awareness, holding him up, keeping him from dissolving into the darkness.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 33 - THE BOOK OF FIVE RINGS**

* * *

 **Upstate, New York, October, 2016**

Morning had come and there were no stirring sounds heard yet inside the house. The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked softly, but no one was aware. The pipes groaned and creaked inside the walls, unnoticed.

In the kitchen, the clock on the coffeemaker was blinking. Power had come back on during the middle of the night after the storm had finally passed by. Buddha, the cat, was peering in at the french doors, soundlessly meowing through the glass, quietly looking inside for them while the two slept peacefully, restfully, on the L-shaped couch.

The last days had dismantled the dream of a twenty-four-hour day, as their work often did. One did what one must do, regardless of the hour, in their work. And so their rest, too, was stretched longer to recover from the hard labor of attending to the soul: the Warrior and the Healer lay deep in slumber.

The sun would be a third of the way on its travels in the sky before they awoke, within moments of each other, speaking softly in the quiet morning light, before throwing blankets to one side and rising for the day. It was already warm; bright sunshine in a cloudless deep blue sky.

Jules started their coffee first, then went to her room to shower. Reese stood at the back door looking out over the deck and the deep green grass, to the woods that led down to the lake. Buddha had already given up and had gone off to another stop on his usual route to find a hand-out and perhaps a little scratch behind the ears. It takes a village to civilize a feral cat.

Reese showered and dressed and packed the few items he had used from his bag, then left it sitting on his bed in the guest bedroom. He met Jules in the kitchen finishing up the food for breakfast.

They carried their plates to the kitchen table and sat down opposite each other. Jules wanted to give Reese his space and keep the mood light; she didn't want him to feel like she was inspecting him after the deeply revealing work he had done with her yesterday. But there was something important that she wanted to do before Reese left to go back to Manhattan.

She looked lightly at Reese's face. The sunburn had turned to a healthy glow now, and his face was relaxed. She could sense how grounded he was now, how present. There was just a small adjustment that she felt would help things gel and would pave a path forward for them.

She went to her library and from the shelves devoted to martial arts, she selected a small, thin paperback book written by a well-known American master of karate, called _The Martial Artist's Book of Five Rings_. This book was a martialist's interpretation of the _Book of Five Rings_ written by Miyamoto Musashi, _kensei_ , or sword-saint, of Japan. Musashi was a Warrior, with many kills in his lifetime, who developed a style of fighting with two swords, which he taught to his students.

In his sixties, he began to write about the warrior's Way, the essential knowledge he had learned and wished to impart to those who would commit to this lifelong pursuit. The book was brief and concise, but if followed faithfully, it would unfold into a map of ever-enlarging vistas, of landscapes both internal and external, expanding outward into the Universe all around us. It would require a lifetime of steadfast devotion to its principles by the faithful.

Jules sat down across from Reese again and said "I have a gift for you." Reese looked up at her with a questioning look.

"This is a book – very brief – that you could read in a few hours cover-to-cover. But it is a book that will change your life forever if you choose to open the cover.

"This book is about you. This book is who you are. It holds the answers you have been looking for. It has been on my shelf for nearly twenty years and has served me well. It is not to be read lightly. It is only for those who are traveling the road that you chose.

"I am giving it to you so that you will have company on your own road as you find your Way."

She handed Reese the book and he read the cover and looked up to Jules, nodding yes.

 **Manhattan, October, 2016**

The day had passed quickly, smoothly, and the time away had brought a renewal of spirit, a freshness to the work that was not lost on the rest of the team. There were knowing smiles from Finch, a furrowed brow from Shaw over her coffee cup, and a thorough beat-down from Fusco, to which Reese replied, with an innocent smile and shrug, "I don't know what you mean, Lionel."

It was good to be back. Everything was exactly the same as when he had left, but completely different. Reese could not explain how it was different, but it was. There was a sense of something put to rest a little bit, or the volume lowered on a sound that had grown too loud and distracting, too piercing for everyday life. In the new quiet, there was more time to linger, to notice, with sharper vision, the small wonders and nourishing bits left unnoticed before.

Reese had gone home at the end of the day, latching the door behind him and leaning against the heavy frame as always, stopping for a moment to sample the air inside. The air was cool, and there was the layered sensation of undisturbed currents on his skin, and the faint scents that he had come to expect. All were like a welcoming hug from a long-time friend. He dropped his case on the floor and walked into his kitchen.

He had stopped for food on the way, and pulled out the hot dishes. Usually, he would eat out of the containers while standing over the kitchen counter with his fork. But tonight, he turned to his cabinet and pulled down a plain, flat dish, spooning food from the various cartons to create a colorful plate for himself. He sat down on a chair, after pouring a drink and turning on his radio for some music to accompany his meal. He thought about upgrading his equipment for a better sound, and smiled to himself. This new relationship was likely to become expensive for him.

Later on, in the late evening, when the world became quiet and one could think, Reese was sitting on his leather couch, under the long stretch of high industrial windows above him. He held the thin white book Jules had given him earlier, reading the front cover again, then turning it over to read the synopsis, and the short autobiography of its American author. He turned it over again and looked at the line drawing of a feudal Japanese warrior behind the lettering of the title. How could this centuries-old figure relate to his life, today? He thought about tossing it onto the table in front of him, as something irrelevant. Irrelevant.

He leaned back, with the slight scent of leather rising from the warmth of his body on its surface. It was somehow reassuring, and he inhaled a deeper breath, before opening the cover. In front of him, a few pages deep into the book, were the words "and so we begin..."

Miles away, in the dim light of the training school, a figure stood before the Wooden Man, bare arms slapping against the smoothly polished wood, lifting the arms, which clacked up and down in the grooves cut to hold them. The clacking was punctuated with the heavier thud of the tree trunk rising and dropping down on the wooden frame in a well-rehearsed cadence, learned at the side of her own sifu, many years before. Her eyes were closed, yet her hands flew precisely to each mark, strike after strike, as a smile came across her lips, and she said out loud, "and so we begin..."


	6. Part 5

**CHAPTER 34 - BIRDS, REPEAT POI, SINGING BOWLS, BOOK OF EARTH  
**

* * *

 **Upstate New York, September 2014**

Harold could hear the soft monotone of Jules' voice at the edge of his awareness, and it felt as though it invited him to lean back more deeply into his chair, sinking into the comfortable cushions. After a while, it seemed that the chair began to drift or rock, slowly, side to side. Maybe it wasn't the chair. Maybe it was really Harold rocking a little bit, side to side, as he leaned back, feet up, supported so comfortably on the chair. It was almost imperceptible, this motion, and it reminded him of something from his long-ago memory.

He remembered the sound of the rope hammock in the back yard under the two trees that anchored it, creaking as it rocked slightly in the breeze. He had been reading more about some of the birds he had seen that day. The weighty volume held pictures and paragraphs of information for hundreds of birds in its pages. The book had been a gift from his father, so they could share a hobby that his father loved. He taught Harold how he carefully caught and banded the wild birds flying through their property on the farm in Iowa. The book was to teach Harold more about the birds they caught. It seemed to Harold that his father already knew every bird, without even looking in the book.

Harold remembered helping him unfurl the net that stretched ten or twelve feet from post to post. Then they would push the metal posts down into the soil and stake the tie-downs in opposite directions to keep the net from tipping over with the bird strikes. They would conceal themselves in a little shed nearby to keep watch on the net. They always picked the same spot to put it, because there was a natural path among the trees that the birds favored as they flew through, and there were shadows that hid the net until it was too late for them to avoid it.

Harold would call out to his father as soon as he saw a bird fly into the net, and his father would remark how he had "good eyes" to see the tiny birds on the large net. They would walk softly to the spot where the bird was trapped, careful not to make too much noise and scare the captive bird any more. His father always handled the birds himself at first, until Harold was a little older and then he was allowed to untangle them gently from the black net, too. They would speak softly to the bird, trying to tell it that they meant no harm and would let it go very soon.

His father had an old fishing tackle box that had some needle nose pliers and a pile of tiny soft metal bands with numbers on each one. They would record some information about the bird, and then his father would slide one of the bands around the bird's leg, just above the foot, and gently squeeze the band closed with the pliers.

He had a soft touch, and in all the years that Harold watched him band the birds, he never saw a bird get injured. He remembered when his father showed him how he could "hypnotize" a bird one time; had opened his hand up with the wren on his outstretched palm. The bird didn't fly away. It just sat there watching them, hypnotized, according to his father.

Once they recorded the number of the band next to the rest of the information about the bird, in the official log book, they would let the bird go. Harold got to do that part. His father would gently transfer the banded bird to Harold's hand, and he remembered the feeling of the soft feathers on his hand, and the warmth of the downy underside of the body. He could even remember how he could feel the bird's frantic heartbeat in his palm before it lifted off, pushing with its feet and swinging its wings out away from its body, flapping and flapping to get airborne.

When they were finished for the afternoon, and had put everything away, his father would sit down with him at the picnic table in the yard. They would have some lemonade and cookies or a sandwich and look over the log book together to see which kinds of birds they had banded that day. Sometimes they would catch one that had already been banded, and they would quickly check to see if it was one of theirs. That was fun when they caught one again a year or two later, and they would make up stories about where it had been and what it had done since they had put the band on its leg.

Whenever they caught a bird that Harold didn't know, he would bring out the thick, heavy bird book and read about it while he was lying in the hammock. He remembered the sound of the rope rubbing against itself, creaking and creaking, as the hammock rocked back and forth beneath the trees. But most of all, he remembered the time he spent with his father, his soft brown eyes, and his smile, the gentle way he had with all living beings.

Harold could hear soft music playing around him as he woke from his dream. The lights were low and the fire was throwing gentle heat out into the room. Jules was sitting facing the fire and the light made her glow. She had stopped talking and seemed to be resting with her eyes closed, sitting against the high back of the couch. Moments later, her eyes opened and she looked to Harold.

"I was having a dream, Jules," he said, with a drowsy sound in his voice.

"Umm," she replied, encouraging him to say more if he wished.

"I remembered something from my childhood, back on the farm in Iowa. My father and I spent time together catching wild birds and banding them with little metal bands on their legs. We kept logs and sent the information into some agency that tracked bird migrations and such." Jules' face was soft and her eyes smiled as she pictured the scene with young Harold and his father. She could imagine what kind of a man Harold's father must have been, how gentle and caring he was, to have raised a son as gentle and caring as Harold. She could sense a little thaw beginning to happen at the edges of the frozen lake locking up Harold's feelings. Good. This was promising.

 **Bethesda, Maryland, September, 2014**

Root and the D.C. Team were returning from dinner, back to the hotel where the meetings were taking place. Things had been going well, and so far, there were positive things to report back to New York when she spoke with Harold next time.

Harper and Joey were huddled together looking at Harper's laptop. She was pointing at a bio about a number that had just come in today. It was a number that had a history with them already. It had come up before, when they were first getting organized, first meeting each other and setting up their operation. They had not really been able to pursue it at the time, so they had just filed the information they were able to gather before it dead-ended in Europe; Italy, they thought. Now, here it was again on their screen.

It was a woman's face, friendly-appearing, with a kind smile and intelligent eyes. She was an artist, a painter, who created covers for magazines and other publications, in the traditional style. She painted them, rather than using computer software to create the images. Some magazines still favored the look of the painted cover-art. She had lived in New York City for years, but then apparently had moved overseas to Europe. That is where her trail ended. They had no further data about her. It was as if her footprint had been expunged, as though someone had gone to great lengths to hide her whereabouts, her identity, habits, and all of the personal data that should be available for a citizen. She had vanished. Even Leon, using his forensic accounting skills, couldn't come up with anything to help find her.

The two talked together and then Harper told Joey she would run it by Samantha while she was still here. Maybe she would have an idea to help them move forward.

"Sam, let me show you something. We just got this new number in today, but it's weird. We have actually had this one before, but we couldn't do anything with it the first time. We followed the leads, but then the trail ended and we couldn't go any further. It was as though someone had erased her information at the time she moved overseas, and there is no trail to follow now."

"Hmm, that's interesting," Root said, looking over their shoulders at the picture on the screen.

"I'll try to do some digging on my own and see what I can come up with. We can take a break and maybe we'll meet again tomorrow morning at the office in D.C. Why don't you give Logan a lift, tomorrow, and show him how to get into the Office." Harper and Joey agreed and sat together with Logan, making arrangements to drive him in in the morning. Then he had said that with traffic what it was around D.C., it was silly to drive. He would take the train in and meet them at some convenient spot. Everyone agreed and they got up and shook hands all around. Logan seemed pleased with the way the team had communicated, and things already seemed comfortable.

It had been a long day, and they were ready to kick back and relax a little before they needed to be at work in the morning. Joey had a wife at home, and would drive back there tonight. Logan and Harper were both single, but Harper had an apartment in D.C., and Logan was staying here in the hotel. Harper was going to run back to her own place tonight and then meet the two men in D.C. in the morning. Then they would all make their way to the Office together.

Root would stay in the hotel tonight and work on this "mysterious woman" situation. She was getting a strange feeling that there was something the Machine knew but was keeping to Herself. She said goodbye to the rest of the team members as they scattered to their next venues and sat down with a glass of wine from the mini-bar in her room. Root began to research this friendly-faced woman on her monitor. The bio gave her name as Grace Hendricks.

 **Manhattan, September, 2014**

Reese and Shaw had finished interviewing Pauly DeMotto, the man they had saved in the diner. They confirmed the information they had on him and then told him he was free to go, now that the two men threatening him had been arrested. They were trying to extort money from Pauly and he was going to try to handle it on his own. It would probably have ended badly for him, Reese told him.

Reese said that he and Shaw had been tailing the two for a week, that the men were part of a local crime ring and had a long history of bad behavior. As they were ready to confront the two, Pauly had appeared in the middle of their arrest and it looked like he would have been killed if they hadn't rescued him there in the diner.

Pauly had looked shaken when Reese told him how close he had come. He admitted that he had a bad temper, and that things could definitely have gotten out of hand if Reese and Shaw hadn't intervened. Then Pauly had left quickly after that, and Reese and Shaw headed back to the library.

Bear was resting on his thick dog bed when they got back, and he jumped up, wagging his tail, when they arrived. They had blue and white deli cups of coffee in hand, and bags of food to have for breakfast, lunch and now dinner. They had missed all three today, and planned to make up for it right now.

Shaw thought Bear would need to take a walk outside, and leashed him. He pranced and bobbed with her playfully as she mock-chased him in the library. But when she said softly, " _Rechts_ ," he stopped and pulled up on her right side, walking attentively with her to the door. Reese smiled at the two. Bear was good for Shaw. She almost seemed normal when she was around Bear.

When she returned after walking him, she put some food into his bowl and gave him some fresh water, then she sat down with Reese at the table, where Reese had pulled the food from both their bags and arranged it on the table for them. Shaw started to eat, but her coffee was cold and she jumped up to reheat it, when her phone rang. It was Root.

"Hi, Sweetie," she said to Shaw, who looked to Reese and rolled her eyes.

"So, Root, which State are you in today?" Shaw asked.

"Oh, I'm still in D.C. Things are going well here. Everyone is playing nicely with everyone else, so far. They are so much better-behaved than we were when we first got together. Aw, I kinda miss those days, don't you, Sameen?"

Shaw looked over to Reese again, frowning at first and then starting to recall some of their more interesting situations. Reese put his hands in the air as if to say "leave me out of this – I have nothing to say."

"Anyway, were you calling for anything specific, Root? We were just sitting down to have our first meal of the day – it's been a little busy around here with Harold away."

"How is Harold doing these days? Is he getting any better?"

"He's still screwed up from the isolation tank, but he went away this weekend, and we're hoping it's a good sign."

"Well, let me go through this with you both, quickly, so you can get back to dinner. The team here had a number come up two or three months ago when they were first getting their unit up and running. They took it as far as they could, but the number was for a woman from New York City, who moved to Europe, possibly Italy, and then dropped off the map. There is no information about her, like every trace of her has been wiped clean by somebody who doesn't want her to be found. Well, now she has come up again on our system down here. Haven't been able to make sense of this and thought I'd run it by you to see if you have anything on her up there."

Reese cocked his head, and frowned. This was beginning to sound too familiar. "Do we have a name?"

"Yes, her name is Grace, Grace Hendricks." Reese's face was frozen for a moment.

"This is not good, not good at all," he said, softly.

"Why? Who is she?"

"Someone close to Harold," Reese said.

Hours later, Reese, Shaw and Root were still at it, researching Grace and the location they had breached two months ago when they freed Harold from captivity. Reese filled in some of the story to help the others find a way to track Grace in Italy, where she had gone to teach art. Months after she had begun to deal with the shock of Harold's loss in the ferry bombing, she had received an offer from a school in Italy to teach art.

The students were refugees from Syria, Iraq, all over the troubled Middle East, who had come by the boatload to the shores of Italy. These were the ones who had survived the harrowing trip in overcrowded boats, when many did not make shore alive, escaping an even deeper terror where they had come from. They were uprooted, traumatized again and again. Grace had known instantly that this was her new calling, to work with the refugees, especially the children, to give them an outlet for their pain, using the simple ingredients of paint, paper, and a caring human's touch.

Grace didn't know Harold was still alive, was orchestrating the offer to teach in Italy, was erasing her from view, little by little, to protect her from Samaritan's global gaze. He had wanted to protect her by giving her a new life without him and the dangers that came with knowing him.

The food had long gone cold on the table. They worked into the night, but couldn't untangle the layers of protection Harold had carefully crafted to obscure his beloved Grace. They were going to have to get his help. Only Harold would know how to find her.

 **Upstate New York, September, 2014**

Harold had gone off to bed shortly after he had told Jules of his dream, and he was surprised at how comfortable he was in an unfamiliar bed. He drifted off to sleep quickly. But he began to have an odd sensation. As sleep was overtaking him, he began to feel a shifting sensation in his mind, as though he were somehow alternating awareness between two of him at once, shifting back and forth between awareness in one, then in the other, the scene around him shifting with the body he inhabited. One body was the Observer of the other, aloof, unaffected by the emotions of the other, who was struggling and growing more fearful by the moment.

It was dark around him, and he kept peering, nearly frozen in place, to see where he was, but he couldn't get anything to come into view. As he swung his head around, there was no sound in any direction. He didn't know if he were inside a building or outdoors. There were no scents in the air, and no breeze or sense of temperature on his skin; nothing to tell him where he was or what was happening to him. Panicked in the blackness, he tried to wake himself up out of it, but he couldn't get out. It enclosed him even more, like a coffin; stifling, airless. No breath. He heard himself call out for help, clawing at the walls.

And then he was awake, sitting up in his bed, and Jules was at the door. When he called out, she must have heard him.

"I'm sorry, Jules, did I wake you? I think I was having a bad dream," Harold said, and he quickly threw his covers over to one side, anxious to catch his breath. He didn't want to try to go back to sleep just yet – he didn't want to take a chance that he would re-enter the same dream and cycle back through it all over again.

Harold didn't know where the dream had come from, yet it was somehow familiar. Lately, he had been getting a feeling that this dream was circling around just at the periphery of his conscious awareness; like it was there waiting for the right time to make itself known to him, and here, tonight, it had revealed itself to him.

"I need to get up and walk around. Change the thoughts, you know." He got up and walked with Jules back out to the kitchen. She had been awake and was sitting by the fire when she heard him struggling in his room.

She made him some of his favorite Sencha green tea, and made a cup of licorice mint tea for herself. It was slightly sweet and had a little coolness on the tongue from the mint, after the first rush of licorice flavor. So comforting. The tea filled the kitchen with a soothing, calming herbal scent.

Harold was looking a little better now, but Jules could see that he was still shaken. His dream had brought him close to the edge, and she had a sense that this was just the beginning. A crack had opened in the mental cement he had poured to encase the events that had taken his feelings away. Something had been done to Harold, had terrorized him so deeply that his only recourse had been to put it in a place where he didn't have to look at it again. Except that that never really works, she thought to herself. Feelings like that never stay buried. They leak, and bubble up out of the depths, often when one is the most vulnerable– in sleep or when weakened from some new trauma.

"Harold, I wonder whether you would let me help you change the feeling making you shake inside. Remember I told you that I can treat you, and that you don't need to say anything at all during the treatment. You won't need to tell me what happened to you. I can help you get past this feeling that you're having right now."

He thought about it. Jules could see the strain in his face, the sudden buckling of his body as he allowed himself to actually feel the trembling. He could feel the sensation inside him, and the edges of it as well. But he was filled with dread to imagine going deeper. He was certain that there was something waiting for him, something so much worse than anything he could remember. Part of him wanted to avoid it at all costs.

She let him do what he needed to do to convince himself. She trusted that he would be guided to the best course of action, and that she didn't need to press. When he looked up, finally, and nodded to her, she walked him slowly down the hall from the kitchen, and at the end of the hall was the large square room where she kept her treatment table. It was thickly padded and comfortable to lie on, even with all the musculoskeletal problems Harold had.

She brought him to the table and had him kick off his slippers, remove his robe, and lie face-up on the table, with a contoured pillow under his head and neck for support. She placed a thick fabric bolster under his knees to lift them, and relax the lower back muscles. Then she pulled out a heavy flannel flat sheet that she doubled over, covering him to keep him from getting chilled, and to give him a sense of privacy in this large, open space.

She lifted his glasses from him and placed them on top of his robe, where he could find them later. She could see that he was tense. He didn't know what to expect. She sat down next to him and began to tell him how she worked. The light would be dim in the room, and music would be playing. His job was to breathe comfortably, and allow her to work with his arms, shoulders, neck and so forth. The work she did did not need anything more than that from him. He could stay awake, or he could drift off, as he wished. There was no need to say anything, unless he felt uncomfortable with the positioning as she worked with him. If anything felt painful or strained, he was to let her know, and she would stop, modify what she was doing. She reminded him that there would be no sudden movements. This work was very slow, gentle and predictable. At the end, Harold nodded to her, and then shifted his shoulders around to loosen them before she began. She smiled at him, and put her palm on his shoulder, reassuring him.

On the nearby cabinet, she turned on the orange salt lamp, and it glowed with a soft orange light. She went to the CD player and selected a particular CD, called _Compassion,_ to play in the background. It was an instrumental, with breathy, gorgeous long passages of peaceful music, perfect for the mood she wanted to create in this room. And the piece would not fight with the sounds of the crystal singing bowls she planned to use, either.

She went to the wall of shelves holding the bowls and selected the ones she wanted to use, placing them on the floor in a ring around the table where Harold was lying. _Compassion_ was so familiar to her after years of hearing the hour-long track, that she knew just where in the piece to sound each singing bowl, letting its vibration slowly build as she rubbed the suede mallet around each rim.

The vibration would gradually fill the room with its deep sonorous note, entering both their bodies, vibrating down to the tissues, down to the cells, the molecules, the sub-particles, gently re-working the injured parts. The bowl's sound penetrated through everything–it transcended speech, and did its work with just the pure, naked sound of quartz, vibrating in the air around them.

The mix of singing bowls, overlaying the music of C _ompassion,_ created a deeply nurturing pool of sound to float Harold gently ahead toward a peaceful destination, where the mind released stress and fear, where stillness took their places. In that safety, Jules could add the human touch of her own hands, which she applied gently to the skin of the neck and back, the shoulders and ribs, marching softly down the body, unwinding the tissues under her hands, until Harold's body was at deep rest. She had kept her word. There was no need to speak for this treatment to work. He had been silent throughout, carried far away by sound.

Two hours had passed with her hands on him and Jules returned to the bowls one last time. Beginning with the one that was tuned to the crown chakra on the top of the head, she descended through the chakras to brow, throat, heart, solar plexus, sacral and root; one bowl, one note, one chakra. She moved down the musical scale, ending with the root chakra bowl, which was blue, and which she lifted up from the floor, walking around Harold while she sounded it softly in the air on all sides of him. Sounding the bowl that was tuned to root chakra would ground him, pull his energy from its fear-position, up high and weak in the chest, down low, where it would calm him, and make him feel well-supported. She always ended with root.

At the end, she sat down at his head and placed her hands under it, cupping the curve of his skull. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply several times to reset herself, empty herself of any thought for a few minutes. Then she began to send mental pulses of warm, healing energy through her hands into his head and down through his body. There were small jumps in his muscles that she could feel as he responded to the energy flow. She brought the treatment to a close by leaning forward and silently speaking a prayer over him, for his peace of mind and healing.

She covered him with a blanket over the flannel sheet and left him with the soft, breathy music playing in the room, lit only by the orange salt lamp. Orange. The color of change.

 **Manhattan, October, 2016**

Reese had been reading the first section of the Five Rings book, called Earth. It was simple and direct in its language, but there was a feeling when he was reading the words that it was affecting him more deeply inside himself, as though re-arranging some things in his deeper core.

This first chapter described how a Warrior was different from other people, how a Warrior was expected to study, to train and to care for his weapons incessantly, to make himself known to his weapons, and to make himself worthy of attracting " _the spirit of the thing_." Knowledge would not just reveal itself to the student without a significant investment of his time and blood.

The cost of Knowledge was time, time spent soaking in the study of the Way of the Warrior, of practicing every day as though this day could be the last, and in this mindful soaking, when " _you permit the spirit to permeate your being, the spirit will permeate through you by permitting you to be its instrument_."

Reese had finished the Book of Earth, and had leaned back outstretched on the couch in his living room under the high windows. He began to dwell on the meaning of what he had read. It was immediately true for him. Just like this Warrior from another time in history, they had both faced death in combat many times. The weapons were different, but the feelings were the same. They were not students mock-fighting in class to show their teacher the technique they had learned. They were engaged in mortal combat, and either they were going to live or they were going to die, by their own training and efforts. This was what separated a Warrior from all other classes of people: " _a master achieves the Way by being devoted to the art, while the art itself reveals its true identity to a warrior only when the "spirit of the thing itself" feels comfortable with the warrior as a vehicle for its own expression...the level of commitment that you give to it will indicate to it what to reveal of itself to you."_

It was true. Reese had spent decades of his life in pursuit of certain skills and familiarity with the instruments of his trade. His weapons had become like extensions of his limbs, so well-known to him that he did not have to look at them to know their state. He could tell by its weight if there was a bullet left in the chamber. He could shoot with his right or left hand. He was proficient with all manner of weapons, and even with none, in hand-to-hand combat. He could fashion a weapon from materials lying around his environment. He was resourceful, methodical, and committed to his task. He depended only on himself, but he could also work with and lead others. In these things Reese was in accord with the principles of the Book of Earth. He had lived them and was most comfortable when he followed them. It was the next Book that would begin to unravel him, to throw him into dissonance with its author and with himself. He hesitated to go there just yet. He wanted to linger in the comfort of the first Book, to drink in the nourishment of finding a like soul, who understood to the greatest extent possible what it was to stand toe-to-toe with another human being and know that one of you would live and one of you would die in the next moments in real battle.

Miles away, Jules had been seated in a workroom next to her garage, with the cover thrown off a project she had been working, off and on, when she was home from assignments overseas. It was a tabletop made of inlaid, precisely-cut shapes of wood: cherry, and ebony. She had imagined the piece and purchased the wood she wanted to use, then had sat with them for days, before commencing the work of cutting and fitting them together in the intricate design. She had held them in her hands and had laid them out in front of her, interleaving the two woods so that they touched each other and, in that way, became familiar with each other and with herself.

And, too, she had introduced the small, fine-toothed exquisite Japanese saws that she would use to make the cuts, holding them in her hands and then laying them across the wood on the table in front of her so that all the parts could touch each other. In this way, " _the spirit of the thing_ " would reveal itself to her and guide her hands to create the proper cuts as she endeavored to manifest the desires of the wood.

Tonight, she had sat down in front of the steadily-growing tabletop, and placed her hands flat on its surface, re-acquainting herself with the spirit of the wood. The faint vibration was there, under her hands. And as she sat there with her eyes closed, tuning into this vibration, her awareness was drifting to the area in front of her chest, roughly in the shape of an upright cylinder. This was a space she held there for Reese. She had kept the space since their first meeting together; she could feel the soft movements of his energy, far away, like a spider feeling the vibration of the wind on the silky threads of its web.

She was drawn, through this sensation, to a passage from the Book of Earth: " _when the warrior becomes skilled and understands his chosen weapons, when he cares for them with a sense of oneness knowing they are used to defeat enemies, he can be self-assured as a warrior...A craftsman must likewise understand the spirit of his tools. He must care for them as for his very own self. Only then can he meld with them to become the end product...A lancer should understand the sword, a kempoist should understand ju-jitsu technique, and a doctor should know carpentry._ " The wood had called to her tonight to hear its message, and to tell her that Reese was hearing it as well. She could sense him like a soft heartbeat in the space she held for him. All was as it should be, she thought, and smiled to herself.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 35 - I'M WAITING, BOOK OF WATER, FORGETTING TO PAINT, WHITE TEA  
**

* * *

 **WARNING** : the second section of this chapter contains graphic descriptions of medical situations with adults and children which may be disturbing for some readers and the reason for a story rating of T. Please skip to the next part of the chapter if you wish.

 **Upstate New York, September 2014**

Jules walked down the hallway, barefoot, from the treatment room where she had left Harold in deep sleep. She passed by the kitchen and then took a place on the L-shaped couch in the living room. The darkness there was soothing to her. The quiet of the last two hours lingered. She could just hear the strains of _Compassion,_ playing down the hall for Harold as he slept, the sound slowly rocking, rocking, repeating its low soulful theme, again and again. Her eyes closed as she listened.

It was late – already the middle of the night now. She could feel the warmth of working with him still present in her hands, the traces of Harold's energy on them as she leaned back against the leather. It ran up her forearms and made a slight warm vibration in her skin. She slid down onto one side and folded her forearms next to her heart, breathing in in deeper breaths, each breath attracting the next, ever deepening, until she dropped into sleep herself.

After a time, a familiar old dream began to assemble in her mind, stirred by the deep work she had done with Harold tonight. She had learned not to resist this dream when it came, but to let it flow unrestrained toward her. Resisting it would give it more energy, more power to overwhelm her, so instead, she allowed it to flow through her once again, like storm surge through pillars, with the home intact, well above it.

 **Southern Sudan, 2003** \- **rated T**

Jules could hear the music and the peals of laughter from the large tent at the end of the dusty path, next to the office. Her entire out-going crew was in there, welcoming the in-coming crew with a little party, as her team readied to ship out over the next 48 hours. They had been in-country for nine months, and all of the old-timers who had been with the group for years before her had said over and over that this assignment had been a bad one, one of the worst. So much death. Famine; civil war; epidemics of malaria, tuberculosis, kala azar; wide swaths of the population had been decimated and children less than fifteen years old, in particular, had died in alarming numbers.

Humanitarian groups in Southern Sudan had come together in an unprecedented way to turn the numbers, to stem the spiraling and appalling loss of life, but there were so few resources available there. Vital lab work had to be sent out to neighboring countries like Kenya. That delayed diagnoses, and cost many lives. But medications would not be made available to the patient by the donors without a clear diagnosis. Faster diagnostic tests were available, but there were not enough trained technicians to run the tests in-country, so they often sat unused in the primitive outlying clinics. Newer medicines were coming in, too, but they had worse side-effects than the older ones, needing aggressive treatment themselves. All the patients were in desperate need of better nutrition to recover.

The months had dragged on and on, with little relief from the tide of in-coming victims. When Jules looked around at the staff these days, she could see the same exhaustion in their faces, the dark circles under their eyes from the long shifts, the mental and emotional struggle of being ground under an unrelenting, slow-motion crisis. Just two more days, and they would be on their way out of it. It would be good to be back home. She needed a day without death.

As one of the newest on the team, it was customary to stay back with the patients this night, while the rest took a break from patient care and sat with the in-coming staff. It had been a quiet evening at the start, with Jules making rounds with some of her students from the local population whom she had been training for months in basic patient assessment and treatment.

They reviewed charts together as they rounded on some of the most critical patients clustered in several adjoining tents. One man had been brought in with a severe wound infection days ago, and had initially started to respond to antibiotics and surgical care of his belly wound, but he began to crash tonight.

Jules could see the signs. His blood pressure was dropping, his dark skin mottled and cool to touch. Tiny red dots, hemorrhages, in the skin began to appear all over his body, and then he began to bleed from every orifice and every puncture site made during the days of aggressive treatment. They had quickly changed his antibiotics, certain that an overwhelming infection was causing the bleeding disorder and if they could just get the right antibiotic into him in time, they would have a small chance of stopping the cascade of events that would otherwise take his life. It was not promising at all. His blood pressure had dropped so low that he was unresponsive. They were pouring fluids into him to keep his pressure up and buy him time for the antibiotics to kick in. Jules could see, though, that the blood leaking from him now was thin and watery. His bleeding continued.

Jules had already sat with his young wife, pregnant with their first child, and explained the situation. She had told her that there was only a tiny window of time he had to respond to the treatment, and if he did not, he wouldn't live until morning. It was a cruel story to have to tell her, but it would be worse if she gave the woman false hope. He died in less than two hours.

Jules sat with his wife while she cried and cried at his bedside; other women came to sit with her as well, taking turns wiping her face, holding her, many of the women quietly singing a lament in the background. The nurse's aides washed his body and wrapped it in a sheet. As his body was wheeled away, his wife began to wail and the women rose up with her to keep her from throwing herself to the ground. They lifted her and carried her, thrashing, to another tent, where they would watch over her for the rest of the night. Her cries pierced the air for hours.

Afterward, Jules had gone outside to take a walk in the night air. The sky was clear, and the stars were bright. There was a full moon rising above the horizon. Jules walked slowly along the dusty path away from the tents, to the front edge of the encampment, just breathing in the fresher air. She was thinking of the young couple, and how the woman and her unborn baby would fare now that her husband had died.

There was a soft scraping sound off in the distance, like footsteps dragging in the dry, loose soil. Jules looked ahead, but didn't see anything in the darkness. She stopped to try and hear the direction a little better. Then she saw a slender shadow just visible in the darkness. It looked like someone barely on his feet, swaying as though ready to collapse. Jules ran forward toward the figure, but did not call out just yet, until she could get a better idea who it was.

The figure stepped into the moonlight for a moment, and Jules could see a young girl. In the flash of light, she could see that the girl's eyes were glazed. She looked shocky, unaware of her surroundings, somehow trudging forward toward the lights of the camp. As Jules approached her, she could see the girl clutching something in front of her. A dirty, tattered blue cloth was wrapped around something that Jules couldn't quite see. The girl's steps were getting wider and more unsteady. She was about to fall. Jules sprinted to her and caught her as she began to stumble forward to the ground. She was so light. Jules scooped her up off the path and turned back to the compound with the girl in her arms. She paid no attention to the rest while she hurried to the medical tent.

Inside, she called for her students to come quickly to help her. She laid the girl on a cot, and Jules began to look at her face, checking for breathing, color of her skin, level of alertness in her eyes, moisture on the tongue and the fullness of the vessels on the sides of her neck.

Her mouth and lips were parched and the vessels were flat when they should have been plump with fluid. Her skin was thin and tented when lifted up between Jules' fingers. The pulse at her wrist was weak, rapid, thready. She was badly dehydrated and emaciated. Her eyes, deeply sunken, made no eye contact with anyone. Jules asked to have someone get vital signs on the girl, while she pulled together the things she needed to get an IV started.

When she leaned over to pull a table next to the cot to lay out her supplies, the blue cloth on top of the girl's body slid off to one side, and the students gasped, jumping back. A pair of legs was dangling below the edge of the blue cloth, which was tied around the girl, like a sling. Jules groaned, and pulled the blue cloth up over the girl's head, and away from the legs. Behind her, Jules heard Masud, their surgeon, quietly saying " _mon dieu,_ _mon dieu._ "

A tiny, shriveled baby lay inside the blue cloth, pale, un-moving. Masud lifted the baby in the blue cloth from the front of the girl and brought it to another cot nearby. Jules stayed with the girl, checking for IV sites and prepping a spot. She directed her students to get the IV bag set up while she started the line, so they could get fluids running as quickly as possible. The girl's skin was filthy and Jules had one of the students wash it down carefully to avoid any infection from entering into her bloodstream via the IV placement.

When all was ready, Jules sat down, wrapping a latex band around the girl's arm above the site she intended to use. Then she steadied her hands, feeling for the soft bulge of a vessel under her fingertips. She pricked the skin with the sharp metal tip and delicately advanced it toward the vessel. By feel, she gently pushed it forward, sensing the tiny pops as the needle penetrated each layer. The profound dehydration would make the vessels flat, and trying to thread the round catheter into one side of the vessel without piercing through the opposite side would take skill, patience, concentration and luck.

The students were standing, watching her, and ready to attach the tubing as soon as Jules got the site. She asked one of the students to hold a light to the skin near where she was feeling for the vein and in the pink glow of the light underneath the black skin, she could see the vessel, just a millimeter or two to one side. She angled the catheter there and was rewarded with a sudden flashback of blood in the hub. She was in. Very carefully, she advanced the tip a little further and then pushed the soft catheter forward, over the metal needle, into the vessel. The rest went quickly and they carefully taped the IV in place. Fluid began running rapidly through the IV and thankfully there were no signs of it escaping into the tissues from an errant puncture through the far wall. They could now treat her profound dehydration, and perhaps avoid kidney failure, but there was much more that needed to be done to assess her further needs.

Jules gave the students some orders to write on the chart, and they began to carry out the ones they had been trained to do. Then she turned to the other cot, where Masud stood, blocking Jules' view of the baby. She caught sight of the expressions on the faces of the students who had rushed to help Masud. Their eyes told everything. There were deep lines furrowing the skin between their eyes, and some had hands pulled up against their mouths. Some had tears flowing down their faces. One younger student had stepped away and was sobbing into her hands. Jules leaned around Masud to look at the scene. The tiny baby was long dead.

At first, she just looked at him lying on the cot – and then there was a loud sound, like a gunshot near her ear that made her jump – something had snapped inside her head. She could not accept one more, NOT ONE MORE, death in this sea of death around her. Not the children! Not the babies! Not one more, anyone!

She looked up and realized everyone was staring wide-eyed at her. She had said those words, shouted them out loud in the room, in front of all of them. She turned away, and walked quickly to the tent flaps, leaving them all stunned inside.

Jules was walking, walking away from the tents, away from the encampment, out into the open range. She started to run. The light was so bright from the full moon sitting just above the horizon, that it felt like daybreak. Under her feet, the soil turned firmer and her steps quickened. Her breathing kicked in to match the needs of the muscles pumping in her legs and arms. The air lifted her hair out behind her, shaking the short strands in waves with her footfalls.

Images were coming faster and faster to her brain, from the first days in-country, as the team wrestled with an escalating sense of the death toll from epidemics, starvation, the civil war and mass displacement. Then they were hearing how much worse it was in the back-country, far away from any aid they could possibly provide. It was death on a scale that Jules had never witnessed before, like the huge doors of Hell had opened wide and they were staring into it, unable to look away.

The images continued. Day after day, more and more patients, more horror, more death. It came to her that she had been walking through each day, numb. She didn't know when it had started, but somewhere along the way, the real emotions had just flattened out to nothing. She no longer cried or laughed, or felt the need to talk. And she could see the same thing in the eyes of every other colleague.

And now, at this exact moment, she stopped running, leaning over to breathe hard, in and out, as she realized that the look in the eyes of her patients when they arrived–that ghastly, hollow, traumatized look–was the same one in all of their eyes. They were now all indistinguishable, patients and care-givers, melted together by the same fires of despair.

Jules slowly caught her breath, and began to stand up, her hands on her waist. She walked in a circle, cooling down from the effort of the run. Her mind was clearer now, like she had popped through a membrane, and was splashed with the ooze of whatever it had held, but at least she was through it. She looked to the moon, staring unblinkingly at her from its perch in the night sky. Now that it was higher off the horizon, it had seemed to shrink to a smaller size.

"I'm going home," Jules said to the moon. "I'm going home." She turned away and began walking back to camp.

She went back to her room and washed herself down with water from a basin and a tiny remnant of soap. Then she dressed in some fresher clothes. Part of her wanted to go back to the medical tent and check on the young girl, but another part refused to go. She distracted herself with packing her things for the trip back home to New York. It was not much. She had promised to leave all of her jeans with the women from the village who came to help in the clinic every day. The jeans were already washed and stacked neatly to one side on a shelf. There were some other personal items she had brought with her from home that she would gift to each of her students. They were hard workers, and anxious to learn, perhaps the one bright spot in the last nine months.

There was a soft knocking at her door. She left the light off, but opened the door. Masud, their surgeon, stood there, filling the doorway. She waved him in, and he reached out to grip her shoulders, turning her into the moonlight, to see her face.

"I'm alright," she said in French to him.

"Where did you go?" he asked, also in French. Masud was Egyptian, and it made Jules smile to herself when she thought back to the time she had first met him. She immediately hadn't liked him. She thought he was arrogant, a womanizer, fond of telling stories about this one and that one he claimed he had seduced. And the women did not deny it. Jules had heard it all in the gossip-mill that was the Ladies Locker. She kept her female students away from him, and she was coldly professional with him in their face-to-face dealings. He had not tested her – there were so many other women he could choose.

"I went out for a walk. I'm okay now, really." She started to turn away, because as she said it out loud, her voice cracked and they both knew she was not okay. She stopped and leaned forward, with her hands over her face. She cried without tears. Then Masud was next to her, wrapping her in his arms, softly speaking in French to her, saying that she should cry, that they were all crying for these young ones who were gone today. Such a waste, such a terrible waste, he was saying.

His voice was deep and resonant, and she felt the strength, the steadiness in him as he leaned into her. For a few moments she let herself sink into it, the touch of another human being, comforting her in the darkness. But then, the explosion:

"I can't DO this any more! It is just – HOPELESS – we can't FIX this –" Jules shouted out loud, her voice hoarse and ragged, her body rigid with rage. He held her tighter against him, refusing to let her break away.

"No, no, no – you are wrong," he said softly in French, his voice near her ear, low, resonant. "We do what we can, where we are, with what we have," he said in her ear.

"Look at this! It's not enough!" Jules gestured to the camp, shouting to him. Was he blind? Couldn't he see what was so clear? They were losing – they had completely failed!

"You think like an American. You believe that everything is possible. You snap your fingers and everything changes. It is not so, my dear," he said close to her ear, the sound of the French so beautiful, but the meaning so painful.

"Then why? Why do this, if it can't change?"

"Because we can't stand by and watch. We who know how to help cannot just stand by and watch." Jules began to sob at that, deep, painful sounds from that mourning place inside her. The fight left her, and she stopped resisting his grip.

He lifted Jules and laid her gently on her bed, lying down behind her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. He could feel her flinch at his touch. He knew why.

"You have nothing to fear. I love my wife and children. I would never do anything to dishonor them," he whispered near her ear. She didn't know what to believe. The stories? His words?

She could hear him speaking softly to her in French. He told her that things would not always be this way, that she was desperately needed, and that they must find a way for her to come back to them. She could not give up. Everyone in the group had gone through something like this. He told her to rest now, and that he would stay there with her until morning. He stroked her hair, and kissed the back of her neck, like a father would do for his own child, after a nightmare.

In a little while, he began to tell her a story about his family back home in Egypt, his wife and children, his simple, rich home life. He described their house, and the kitchen where his wife prepared the meals, the food they liked to eat, how the children enjoyed reading and playing music with them in the evenings. His eldest, a girl, looked just like his wife, with soft, dark eyes, and the same quiet strength. His middle one, another girl, was like him, loud, impatient, and with a deep voice just like his. The boy was their youngest, and he was soft-spoken and wise for his years. Masud was certain that he was an old soul returned to this young body. He could see it in the boy's eyes. He knew things.

The resonance of his voice came through his chest as a deep vibration against her back. It was soothing, comforting to her, and the warmth of another's body next to hers settled her fiery brain. She rested in the moonlight next to him.

 **Upstate New York, September, 2014**

Harold woke to orange lamplight and the sounds of music: a piano and an oboe, with the soft sounds of singers sliding through a three-note refrain, answered by a second group in close harmony, followed by the oboe, and then by piano, round and round in a slow, hypnotic, breathy chorale, like in a church. _Compassion_ was aptly named. The tenderness, the deeply-felt strains could not fail to reach into the heart, exposing it on all sides to this achingly beautiful musical prayer.

He felt he was suspended on a wave that carried him forward toward a light. Before him was his Observer self, arms crossed, waiting for him to speak.

"What do you want?" he said to the Observer.

"I'm waiting for you."

"Waiting for what?"

"Waiting for you to remember. You have forgotten the most important thing." But before he could ask the Observer what it was, He had swung away out of the light into the darkness, and He did not respond.

Harold sat up on the table. Jules was gone, and the light was dim, just a low-wattage bulb inside a rough orange lamp on the counter. He could see well-enough to get down from the table and find his belongings. He walked back down the hallway toward the kitchen, and then went out into the living room, where he found Jules, lying on her couch, in the cold night air. He took a folded afghan from the back of the couch and spread it over her, then took off his thick robe, and added it over the top.

She looked comfortable, and he didn't want to wake her just to send her to bed. He let her sleep where she was. He turned around and walked to the guest bedroom. There was something he was supposed to do, but he couldn't quite recall it. It was something he kept forgetting. It kept sliding away from him and he couldn't focus on it to see what it was. Perhaps if he slept on it, it would come to him.

 **Southern Sudan, 2003**

Her sleep was fitful through the night, but each time she woke, she could feel Masud breathing softly behind her. His arm was draped over her shoulders, and the warmth of his body next to hers kept her from flying out into space, tumbling, weightless, un-tethered. The weight of his arm was proof that she was still there. But there was a sense of something so raw, painful, bleeding just at the edge of her thoughts – she kept turning away from it. She couldn't look at it. She tried to go back to sleep again for a little longer until morning light would enter through her window.

In another hour, the light was just coming up and she could see that the sky was gray today, overcast. The rainy season was near. Thank God she was leaving, and didn't have to live through that. In the soft morning air, she could hear Masud still breathing quietly, in deep sleep. She slid out from under his arm and he didn't wake. Jules left the room, walking down the empty hallway–no one else was awake yet on her floor. Midway down the hall was the Ladies Locker, and she entered quietly to do her morning ritual. When she returned to her room, the door creaked as it opened and Masud stirred. Jules sat down on the one chair, and watched him wake.

She felt awkward. She wasn't sure what to say. Jules barely knew him, and here he was waking up in her bed. It was all surreal. She hoped that this would all turn out to be a bad dream, and that she was now awake and would find that none of it had really happened.

"Did you sleep?" Masud asked in French, in a drowsy voice.

"Some," she answered. She pulled her right foot up onto the chair, and wrapped her arms around her right leg.

"You must keep my secret." He raised his head off her pillow and stared at her.

"What secret?"

"That I love my wife and children, that I did not take you last night. You must promise to keep my secret."

"I don't understand. Why do you say those things? Why do you tell these stories if they aren't true?" He smiled a broad smile, and raised himself up from her bed to face her.

"A man loves to be a man," he said to her. She shook her head, bemused. Then she looked to him with a different thought in her mind. She could see that he read it in her eyes.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I want to find her family. I want to find them." She had dreamed about it, and she knew it was something she must do – before she went back home. She needed to find the girl's family and tell them where she was, what had happened to her and to find out more about the baby. It was not negotiable.

"We don't even know who she is, _ch_ _é_ _rie."_ They talked for nearly an hour, with Jules more and more entrenched about her need to find the girl's family. The girl had walked so far, had found them with her last strength, had pulled Jules to her in the moonlight and collapsed in her arms. Jules could not bear to put the baby she had carried so far into the ground; not without a name, without something to mark his life, no matter how brief. Masud could see that he was getting nowhere trying to argue. He told her that he had certain contacts here in the country, and that if they could get a name, her village–anything to help track her down–he would help find the girl's family for Jules. But he had a demand, too. Jules must agree to return, to come back to the group on their next assignment, if he got the information for her. She took a deep breath and sighed out loud before answering him, but then agreed.

Masud raised himself from her bed and told her he would leave now. She agreed to meet him later at the Mess and have her coffee with him. He wanted to head back to his room to wash and change, before starting rounds on his post-op patients. His students had kept watch on them through the night, while he had stayed with her. Jules nodded and stood up when he did. They embraced and he held her for a long time, telling her that she would come through this, as they all had, and not to give up.

 **Manhattan, October 2016**

A week had already slid by since Reese had read the Book of Earth. In that week, some of the passages had kept coming back to him, reverberating in his head like a chant. He had returned to the book each evening, re-reading Earth. It was like the glow of a light left on in a window, seen from far off, guiding the traveler back to safety. Welcome relief.

Strange how it had affected him – he had dreamed of himself back in Basic, his old drill-sargeant bellowing in his ear, and hearing his own squeaky voice saying "sir, yes, sir!" He saw himself on his belly in the dirt and mud, commando-crawling through the course with his weapon held out in front, elevated in both hands. And he remembered hooking on in the plane, before hurling himself out into bright space, buffeted by the air rushing past, until the chute deployed and jerked him back upwards for a few moments.

On and on, he touched the memories from the long days and nights of training, where humiliation and failure began to give way to more reliable success, then polished execution. He saw himself leading other men, gaining skills rapidly, and he saw, over time, the change in his bearing, in his eyes: the look of a man who was fully in command of himself. He had become a Warrior. It was not something he had aimed at; he had not even thought of it as a goal, but over time it had wrapped him and infused him with an undeniable presence.

In the second book of _The Book of Five Rings_ , called Water, Musashi described the strategy of a Warrior. He began with how a Warrior carries himself. " _You are undoubtedly familiar with men who are quiet and strong and seem to be doing nothing. They do not appear to be tense and do not appear to be in disarray. They simply appear...When it is necessary to attack, they do so with complete resolve, sure of themselves, neither over-bearing in attitude, nor with false humility."_

A balance must be found within oneself so that neither false bravado nor lack of confidence tainted the internal sense of self. There must be a stiff resolve, a confidence that flowed directly from unceasing practice and immersion in the Way. The bearing of a Warrior was hard-won, evidence of mastery of oneself, and acceptance by " _the spirit of the thing."_

Reese could agree with the writing to this point. For years, as a soldier, Reese had felt right about it. He faced an enemy who was just like him, trained to carry out his missions, knowing that he, too, could die in the fight. Reese could see that his enemies were real, were right in front of him, and he had no question that they meant to do maximum harm to him or his team. In the beginning, he fought with complete resolve. He felt the confidence of superior weaponry, the advantage of overwhelming force directed with precision or with stunning pounding power. The missions, the intensity of life as a soldier, the friendships forged in deadly battle, all sustained him for a while, gave him a purpose he had been missing. But something happened.

His success had pushed him to work more and more where he knew less and less. He was becoming a deadly weapon wielded by any hand, pointed and fired at an enemy he did not know, and often did not even see. They were no longer exclusively soldiers that he killed. They were targets, who were chosen for him, purported to have lethal intent. They might be terrorists, but they might be scientists, hackers, engineers, politicians–those whose work could bring danger to our shores. His targets often did not even know he was coming. He just appeared and killed them.

He knew what he had signed up to do in black ops, but it began to change him inside. He grew uneasy in this role. Certainly, if the information he was given was true about his targets, they deserved to be stopped. He began to believe, though, that he was not the right one to do it.

Musashi would not agree. In Water, he said " _why would you want to appear as one thing and be another? If you are a warrior then you are a warrior and if you are not a warrior then you are not a warrior. The Way...is the Way...Do not be false to yourself...For whatever reason you have chosen to be a warrior, you must understand your responsibility to the art and to yourself. They are one and the same."_

 **Southern Sudan, 2003**

Jules left her room and walked down the path to the Mess tent. She had waited for a half-hour to allow Masud some time to wash and change clothing before heading over. When she looked through the screening into the tent, she could see a table full of men, surrounding Masud, who was telling them a story. They were all hanging on every word, in rapt attention, as he went on and on, squeezing every drop of juice from his story. Jules entered the tent, and Masud caught sight of her. He stopped, and the table full of men swung their eyes to her, in unison, suddenly caught.

Jules walked slowly, directly to their table, eyes on Masud, who sat motionless at the end, like a Lord. When she reached him, she bent down to whisper in his ear, in French, "a woman loves to be a woman," then swung her head around in front of him, kissing him fully on the mouth. She stood up, and said, in French, in a voice that could be heard down the length of the table, "you were very good to me last night." And then she smiled a small smile at him, and turned to the counter to get her coffee. There was complete silence while she walked slowly to the tent flaps, and out into the morning air. She walked a few steps and stopped to take a sip of her coffee. Behind her, pandemonium at the table of men. A small smile, a nod, and then she walked off down the path toward the medical tent.

 **Upstate New York, September, 2014**

Harold was asleep in the guest bedroom. There was an airiness around him that made him feel strong, like when he used to run through Central Park in the late afternoon in Fall, when it was cool and crisp. He remembered those days, when he could run, when he moved through space with ease, when his mind was full of flowcharts, design windows, testing strategies. He kept it all sorted out and organized, but it came to him in pieces, triggered by some random thought or event. He would pull out his notebook and jot down some keyword that would remind him later what he was thinking and would unfold sometimes into new code, or something he should remember to test in a certain way to check the code already written. He had been confident in those days, fully engaged in this project that would change the world.

There was a certain place that he was remembering, a place for which he had such fondness that it made him light up inside. He was happy, almost giddy. He was remembering the first time he saw it, when the light had been a certain color, deep blue-gray. The sun was low in the sky, chopped in the middle by a band of dark purple clouds, streamers of setting-sun light glowing out the top and the bottom.

He had stopped to take in the beauty of it all, before it dissolved away. He was on a sidewalk, with a low fence at the water's edge. People were walking by, but he was barely aware, caught in the moment of beauty. He watched the sun drop below the purple clouds, and the sunlight flared brightly for a few more minutes, the sky turning to orange-pink, magenta, gray.

From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of someone standing at the end of the sidewalk, where it curved back away from the water. Someone was standing near an easel, holding a brush, and looking out at the same sunset, captivated, forgetting to paint.

He stepped a little closer, then a little closer, until he could see the lines drawn on the canvas, and the work in progress. He stepped closer, and then said out loud, "the sunsets are beautiful here."

In his memory, the artist turned around in slow-motion, smiling, ready to agree. He saw it in her expression. He saw the gentle smile, the soft eyes, her auburn hair. His heart skipped. This is where he had first seen her, with the sunset behind her. It was Grace.

 **Bethesda, Maryland, September, 2014**

Root had showered and dressed, then took the elevator down to the dining room in the hotel for a bit of breakfast after the long night working with Shaw and Reese on the Grace Hendricks' case. The light through the large windows in the dining room was a little too bright, the sounds of the dishes clattering were a little too loud – side-effects of an all-nighter. Today was going to be a bit rough from lack of sleep, but she hoped it could still be productive. The team had a lot to do.

She planned to take the Metro into D.C. and meet with the team in the new office. Logan would be seeing it for the first time, and Root was anxious to see his reaction. This Grace Hendricks thing would be the first big case for him, and it could turn out to be perfect to set the hook into him, if he had any lingering doubts about this new career path.

Logan had never done anything quite like this before, but he had seen Reese in action, saving his life, and it had piqued his interest. He was a quick study, and knew his way around computers as well as anyone on Harold's team. And just like Harold, he wouldn't be expected to have to use a weapon. Joey and Harper would handle that. Overall, Root was happy Logan would be running the show in D.C.

On the way to the dining room, her cellphone lit up with a call from Leon Tao, the new head of Forensic Accounting on Logan's team.

"Leon, how are you this morning?" she asked.

"I think I have something, Sam."

"Go ahead." She heard the barely-suppressed excitement in his voice as the story tumbled out of him.

"I started tracking through invoices from the dummy companies at sites where we know Greer has been in the past. I found invoices from a tea company in England, for two rare kinds of white tea, very expensive and exclusive teas. They are only grown in Fujian Province in China and in the high mountains of Sri Lanka. Only a few companies in the world sell those teas.

"Someone is ordering them from the same British company over and over at each site where Greer is known to have worked. I think the tea is for Greer. If we can hack the customer data base at the tea company in England, maybe we can find out where Greer's been lately, and maybe, where he is right now. That can lead us to Grace Hendricks, and to Samaritan." He stopped to catch his breath, and wait for Root's response.

"Leon, I'm impressed - this is great work – just the kind of lead we need to find Greer. I'm just leaving for D.C. right now and I'll meet all of you there at the office. Go ahead and bring everyone up to date. We'll get to work on it right away." She hung up and then she called Shaw. It rang and rang, then finally Root heard Shaw's sleepy voice.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Good morning, Love. Wish I was there," Root answered in her softest, most seductive voice. She was imagining breakfast in bed with Shaw.

"Root? What's going on?" Shaw was too sleepy to be annoyed yet. The sound in Shaw's voice brought Root back from her dream.

"I just got a call from Leon Tao. He thinks he found a way to track Greer, and maybe find Grace. I can tell you the details later when you're awake, but we need to see if it's real. Did anyone talk with Harold yet?"

"Not yet. It was too late to call him when we finished this morning. We'll get to him soon. Let me wake up and then I'll give you a call back – maybe twenty minutes.

"Okay, talk to you then, Love."

Root quickly stood and lifted her laptop case, anxious now to get to the office. At the breakfast counter, she helped herself to a paper cup for a take-out cup of tea, smiling to herself as she pulled back the black handle on the urn. The steaming water poured down over the teabag, releasing its aroma. Who knew that a detail so small could be the key to finding the elusive Greer and their person of interest, Grace Hendricks?

The Metro Red Line was nearby, and Root walked into the station. Again? The escalator, perhaps the longest one she had ever ridden, was turned off again for maintenance, people trudging up the last few steps from the depths of track-side. Fortunately, she was headed _down_ the steps. From this vantage point at the top, though, she was happy she didn't have a fear of heights. The angle was so steep she felt a little lightheaded staring down the length of it. Wind from the tunnel deep below pushed up the escalator tube in a dusty hot blast, pushing her backwards a little bit as she descended the steps. This commute was not for the faint of heart.

Six stops brought her to Dupont Circle and then a short, one-block walk on P street got her to an old three-story brick building, set back from the street, and a stone's throw from the corner. Upstairs, on the top floor, was an old vintage bookstore, sustained for decades by its fiercely loyal clientele in D.C. and throughout the world. Root had browsed there herself. She wanted to bring Harold there as a treat and watch his face when he entered the Rare Book Room in the back.

On the main floor, inside an unobtrusive front door, there was a small, neat ante-room with a few comfortable chairs and a coffee table spread with some doctor's office magazines. The room was empty now, but the receptionist smiled and nodded as Root entered, then buzzed her right through the locked door to the back.

The front was set up as a psychiatrist's office, and it was expected that clients in that kind of practice would enter through one door, but leave by another to maintain their privacy. Anyone observing traffic in and out of this business wouldn't notice anything amiss.

At the end of the hallway was a security door. Root swung a plaque with the doctor's name on it upward on a hidden hinge, revealing a retina scanner, and leaned into it. The lock popped with a metallic click, and she entered the new D.C. Office. Ahead, in a conference room, she could see Logan, Leon, Harper and Joey already seated, and Leon was reviewing his research with them on their screens, embedded in the conference tabletop.

During the briefing, Logan was multi-tasking, watching and hearing Leon's presentation, then also running a search for the British tea company, which he located east of London. He shared the website details on their screens, and they could see that there were instructions on it for calling to "set up a business account with one of their friendly staff."

Logan looked to the rest of the group and said he had just developed a sudden hankering for a premier cup of tea, and only the finest white tea in the world would do. He grinned, and said Harper should call the British tea company right now: tell them a local business friend had raved about their excellent service - said that he ordered the same rare white tea from them all the time. Perhaps they knew the customer?

If charm didn't work, they could always hack the customer database as Leon had suggested. But, where's the fun in that, Logan said. Either way, they were on the trail of Greer, Grace Hendricks, and Samaritan.


	7. Part 6

**Part 6** :

* * *

 **CHAPTER 36 – HARD RAIN; HAROLD, WE NEED TO TALK; EYES ON; ESCALATOR; _POUR ALUEL_ ;THIS MAY GET A LITTLE MESSY**

* * *

 **Southern Sudan, 2003**

As she approached the tent flaps of the medical tent, Jules didn't know what she would see inside. She was hoping the young girl would be awake, maybe even sitting up on the cot having some food, and talking with other young people from the camp. It would help for her to have other young people around her now, to help her deal with the loss of the baby she had carried in.

Jules would enter the tent quietly, and take in the situation, and if the girl were awake and interactive, Jules would take her time getting to her bedside. She would seek out one of her students first, to find out what had happened overnight, then perhaps she would check in on some of the other patients in the tent, so that the girl could see her circulating around, in her role as doctor, caring for others. She didn't want to barge right in and start interviewing her, asking a lot of painful questions. The young girl was already traumatized enough. Jules would just have to have patience.

On the dirt path near the tent, the skies began to open up and heavy raindrops plopped onto the roof and the path, throwing dust up off the loose soil where large drops struck the ground. The sky was darkening; a thick smell of rain ready to fall was in the air, and she could hear thunder off in the distance. She ducked in through the tent flaps and shook off the raindrops at the entrance, then looked over to the cot where the young girl would be.

The cot was empty. She swung her head quickly left and right down the line of cots, looking for her. Perhaps they had moved her to a better spot. Jules didn't see her, and she started to walk the aisles, looking down the rows of beds. From the corner of her eye, she saw one of her students walking toward her, and she could tell by how she walked that she was about to tell her something she didn't want to hear. She couldn't look at her face. She couldn't hear what she was going to say.

Her students were suddenly in the aisles all around her, surrounding her, corralling her. They stood there as she stopped mid-step and closed her eyes, with her hands across her mouth. She was saying "no, no, no" into her hands.

Her students, seeing her that way, could hold back no longer and circled together around her, hugging her – and each other – in their interlocked arms, heads bent down to the next shoulder, tears falling like rain, everywhere. The only sound was rain on the roof.

The group held together, each one holding the others, and then began to sway gently back and forth – like a mother or a father swaying with an infant held to the chest. Soon, a low sound began to rise from them, an old tribal song, soft and sad, rising to a plea, asking Creator to keep the people safe from harm, to keep them here in their Land, near their cherished herds. Such a far-away dream for them. Unreachable in this war.

Thunder rolled across the whole sky and wind began to howl; the lights flickered inside the tent, as hard rain began to fall like monsoon-rain all around them. The last day.

 **Upstate New York, September, 2014**

Grace?

Wait,wait, wait – there was something about Grace – what was it? There were little flashes in his mind. He could see someone in his dream who looked like Grace, but wasn't Grace at all. She was all wrong. No, but Grace _was_ there. He had seen her. She was on a screen. Scared. She looked scared. And then she was gone. He couldn't see her after that. Just her voice – he remembered hearing her voice in his ears. Where was she?

Harold could hear buzzing, then silence, then buzzing again. He woke to the sound of his phone. Its screen lit the wall weakly in a blue-white glare, and the buzzing was insistent.

"Harold, we need to talk," Shaw said into the phone. Harold already knew what she was going to say. It was all coming back to him with the buzzing of the phone, some trick that his mind was playing on him. His Observer-self was watching, nodding now; Harold was starting to remember. Images were bubbling up from somewhere below the surface, and he knew that Grace was a piece of the whole.

"Go ahead, Miss Shaw. I am listening." Harold knew this was going to be hard to hear.

 **Washington, D.C., September, 2014**

Root and Logan were sitting together in the conference room looking at their monitors. They were checking overhead maps of rural eastern Virginia, an hour's drive west of D.C., with Dulles International Airport situated mid-way between. On the maps, they zeroed-in on a hundred-acre equestrian ranch sitting on the banks of the Little River in Virginia. The team had learned that another shipment of the white teas was headed there from that British tea company in Warwickshire, east of London.

The proprietors had in fact been quite friendly when Harper had called there, but they were also rather tight-lipped about their customers, so Logan was obliged to go to Plan B to get the information. Several recent shipments of the tea had been made to locations near D.C., with the Virginia ranch being the most recent. Leon and Harper were tracking down the other delivery locations to see if Grace could be hidden in one of them.

The ranch would be an ideal location for Greer to use as a base, close to D.C., and even closer to a major airport, but rural, to discourage prying eyes. There were many out-buildings on the property that could hide all manner of activities, and it was a working ranch with millions of dollars invested in the horses; it would be natural to have security to protect their investments, and the ranch would serve as a cover for the real operations going on inside its walls.

Logan's team would have to get eyes on the property to know if Greer was there, and they would look for any signs of Grace as well, but Greer could have stashed her anywhere in the time he had held her.

Once the team had hacked the delivery data from the tea company's database, Root had called Shaw to share the locations they were investigating. Shaw said it was time to bring Harold up to speed. They needed his skills; they needed to put together a plan to find Grace, and to go after Greer, wherever he was. The time to strike at Samaritan's heart was fast approaching and their carefully-conceived plan would soon unfold.

 **Upstate New York, September, 2014**

Harold was watching for the taxi at the front window. He didn't want the driver to sound his horn and wake Jules. Harold had left a long note for her on the coffee table to say there was an urgent matter that required his presence. He would be out of touch for several days, perhaps a week, as he was flying out of state for some important meetings. He apologized for leaving so abruptly.

Harold went on to say that he didn't fully understand what she had done with him, but that it was working. He was beginning to remember things that had happened, thanks to her work. He told her that he would be back in touch soon, that he owed her a great deal more than he could express right now.

Harold wrote that he wanted to be able to tell her everything, but she should know that he was trying to take care of her, trying to keep her safe, in the same way that she was taking care of him. She would have to trust him on that. He couldn't bear it if she were to come to harm. He read over his note and realized he had written "too" at the end: he _couldn't bear it if she were to come to harm, too._

He started to cross it out, but hesitated. Then he just left it. Grace was on his mind, and Harold knew that he had been the cause of so much damage in her life. He didn't want the same thing for Jules, too. Jules and Grace knew nothing of each other. Harold had chosen to keep much of his personal life in separate compartments, with no inter-mixing, though he imagined the two of them would enjoy each other's company if they were ever to meet.

He was on his way to the airport about a half-hour from Jules' house. Reese and Shaw had flown out of Westchester, north of Manhattan, on his corporate jet to collect him here; then the three of them would fly on together to Washington. Their plan was for Harold to stay in the background, out of sight, but Reese and Shaw would engage with Logan's team, and help with the surveillance and eventual breach of the Virginia location if they found Greer there. They needed to find Grace first – Greer would never give her up if he could use her as a pawn to lure Harold out. He had had her in his control for two months, and anything they might do now to get her back would likely spring a trap.

The cab rolled up the road toward Jules' house, and Harold quietly opened the door and carried his suitcase onto the front porch, waving to the cabbie, who stopped and got out to get Harold's case. Harold walked to the passenger side and started to sit down, but the seat was strewn with cigarette wrappers and empty food containers. The cabbie pointed to the back seat and said "passengers in the back."

The back seat wasn't much better. Harold sat down gingerly in the back, the faux leather bench seat in dire need of a deep cleaning if it's worn surface could have survived the effort. The floors were crusted with something unidentifiable, but sticky, and the whole cab reeked of old cigarette smoke. The fabric roof above Harold's head was stained yellow from the years of smoke – what he wouldn't give for this ride with Winston driving, instead.

The trip to the airport was scenic at least, with narrow winding roads through the countryside, past farms and sleepy hamlets, then on to the merge with highways and city sprawl as they got closer. The driver swung, at last, through the airport ramps and delivered Harold to the Departing Services Area. The jet was already waiting there, on the tarmac. Harold made his way through airport security and then down the ramp to private departures. The steward from his jet nodded to him and took the luggage on-board for him. Reese and Shaw were there, studying the maps. He saw the look in their eyes when he entered the cabin. They were concerned, and he understood, but he wanted to put that aside for now, and concentrate on what they knew, and how they were going to find Grace.

"Mr. Reese, Miss Shaw, my business here is concluded, and I am ready to get to work. Tell me what we know right now."

It was a short flight down to D.C.. Before they landed, the pilot took them out low over the rolling farmland of eastern Virginia and they could see the ranch from the air on the approach. It looked like a large green square, among other green squares, bordered by a two-lane road, high brick fences on three sides, and a river on the fourth. It was mostly open fields, with a few tree lines that would offer no cover for them on the ground. There were three long white barns with metal roofs, some other out-buildings scattered around the grounds, and white fences dividing the fields where horses were out grazing.

They landed at Dulles, just 20 miles from Bethesda, where Root and Logan were staying. Before they left the jet, Reese and Shaw pulled a cover off a compartment in the floor. Inside was a cache of weapons lying in cut-out shapes in dense foam. They lifted their guns and checked them before holstering them at their waists in back. They pulled extra ammo clips, too. The three traveled separately to the hotel; Harold registered under an alias. Reese and Shaw went right to Root's room, arriving just before the team returned from the D.C. Office to meet with them.

"Staying out of trouble?" Logan said, smiling, to Reese, offering his hand. Reese shook hands with him, more serious, remembering how Logan had kept him jumping, refusing to heed his warnings, putting himself and Reese in danger when Reese was protecting him from a killer-colleague.

"I could ask you the same thing," Reese said.

Logan smiled and shrugged. "I got bored." Then he looked to Shaw.

"And you must be Sameen Shaw." Logan reached out his hand to her, and she shook it briefly. Logan turned to Joey and Harper, saying he was sure they already knew Reese. Shaw just nodded in their direction and they all sat down together: Logan, Reese, Root, Shaw, Joey, and Harper. Root made sure she sat down right next to Shaw, and then threw her arms around Shaw's shoulders, bear-hugging her. Shaw stiffened and rolled her eyes. "Down, girl," she said under her breath to Root, who feigned a pouty face.

"We're missing one," Reese said.

"Ah, Leon is on his way over. The man of the hour," Logan said, smiling. There was a knock at the door and Root crossed the suite, looking through the peep hole.

"It's Leon." She opened the door and Leon entered with a briefcase in his hand. He was smiling, but he looked distressed. "Sorry I'm late to the party."

"You took the Red Line over?" Root asked, with a knowing smile, expecting him to say he got stuck hiking up the same heart-stopping broken escalator she had descended that morning.

"Yes. Best trip I've had all week," he said, smiling back at her. Root looked puzzled. Leon stopped smiling. Something wasn't right. Root looked suddenly suspicious. Her voice had a distinctly hard edge.

"Tell me more, Leon" Root said, pushing him into a seat. Reese and Shaw stood up, at the ready, with the sound in Root's voice.

"What do you mean? I was just saying that it's usually so crowded, but today it was good – it was good." Leon looked alarmed, and was trying to back-peddle, to say something to defuse the situation, but he could tell Root wasn't satisfied.

"Tell me about the station here in Bethesda, Leon." She was standing over him, pressing him.

"I don't know what you want me to say – it was – I didn't notice anything – " Leon was cringing in his seat.

"The escalator, Leon. Did you notice anything about the escalator?"

"I don't know what you're asking." Leon looked like he was caught. Root turned to the others.

"Check the windows and the hallways. I think we're about to have company." They didn't wait for an explanation, but flipped off the lights and lowered the shades; the room went dark inside. Joey peeked out at the parking lots that he could see from this vantage point. Shaw and Reese pulled their guns and Reese opened the door a crack, looking down the hallway.

"Mr. Reese, Miss Shaw, I am looking at the security camera feed for the hotel, and there are three teams of four armed men entering the building. They are on the lobby floor right now. Your floor is clear. Proceed to the west hall exit to the stairwell." They could hear Harold's voice in their earpieces.

Root had heard Harold, too, and pulled Leon up, checking him for weapons. She gave his briefcase to Harper, then grabbed her own laptop from the bed. Logan and Harper flanked Leon. Joey joined Reese and Shaw, who were motioning for the rest to follow them down the hallway. Reese went first; then Shaw, Root and Harper circled around Leon and Logan. Joey brought up the rear.

"Proceed down the stairs. It is still clear," Harold said. He could see the group making its way to the stairwell, which would bring them down the four floors to an outside exit.

"Detective Fusco is waiting at the bottom of the stairs for you in a black SUV."

"Finch, get out of there," Reese whispered. Harold didn't answer. The group entered the stairwell and Reese led the way, pointing his weapon down the path, while Shaw and Joey covered their backs. The exit door swung open at Reese's push, and they all stopped at the bottom landing while Reese peered outside, looking for any hostiles. There was a large black SUV idling there and Reese could see Fusco in the driver's seat. Reese opened the back passenger-side door and waved the group ahead. Once they were all inside, Reese told them to leave. It wasn't safe to sit there. Reese was going back in for Harold.

He touched his right ear and whispered to Harold. No answer. Then he looked inside the glass panel next to the outside door he had just exited, bent low and opened it, looking quickly past the frame and up the stairwell. He aimed up the stairs and entered, moving to the opposite side, away from the door. He climbed, step by step, with his gun aimed up the path, and listened for any sound of someone coming down the stairs toward him. He swung out wide near the landing, and looked quickly around the wall up the next set of stairs. It was empty. He took these stairs two at a time to the next landing and then opened the door onto the second floor. He could hear the sound of a housekeeping cart rolling slowly down the main hallway, out of sight around the corner from him. Reese stayed low and moved to the corner where his hallway met the main one, and he took a quick look around the corner. The cart was in front of the elevator doorway and a man was just pushing the call button for the elevator. It was a workman dressed in the hotel's garb, a baseball cap pulled over his face. The profile was familiar.

"Finch," Reese called softly. He saw the awkward body movement toward his direction and breathed a quick sigh that Harold was alive. Reese joined him as the elevator door opened and Harold rolled the cart onto the empty elevator. Then the two of them stepped in. Reese looked at Harold, noticing the name on the jacket he had stolen.

"Pablo," Reese nodded toward Harold, who shrugged and then whispered that the men had gone up to the fourth floor and, by now, knew the team had escaped. They would be coming down, looking for them. Harold moved a towel draped down over the back of the cart. His laptop was hidden behind it. On the screen were nine camera feeds displayed, one for each floor, and Harold scrolled through more until he found each of the three groups of men. They had split up and were going floor by floor, looking for the team.

The elevator doors opened and Harold watched Reese push the cart out first, then kneel low behind it as he left the elevator. Reese quickly looked around the end of the cart, again and again, in different directions, but no one challenged. He stood up and Reese put Harold behind him as they backed away from the cart to the Check-in desk. No one was there.

When Reese and Harold backed in behind the desk, they saw why. The clerk was down and blood had pooled under his body. Reese stepped next to him to check for a pulse. He shook his head no toward Harold and they kept moving backwards, into the hotel offices behind the Check-in desk. Reese and Harold were working their way back to Security, where there should be more cameras and surveillance. In the hallway, outside the Security office, there were two more bodies. The security guard and the hotel manager were down. Reese got a glimpse of the office through the glass, and the equipment was wrecked. The recorders were empty. CDs of old surveillance recordings were stomped and shattered all over the floor. All video traces of the attack were gone. Reese called out to Shaw and Root to say he had found Harold and they needed to get him to safety.

 **Calais, France, 2003**

Jules was lying on the couch in her living room. Wine bottles were lined up neatly in a square, three by three. Some were empty. She was finally asleep after days and days of trying and failing. But her brain was bouncing from one thing to another in her dreams.

There were the goodbyes at the camp, when she was leaving her students. Everyone was subdued, all-cried-out. Jules had handed out the gifts she had planned for each one, and they had accepted them with smiles and hugs, but something was missing. They were all just going through the motions. Her last student, the youngest one, had stayed away, unable to say goodbye, so Jules had gone looking for her. Nyandeng was smart. Jules had hopes that she would one day go to college and return here to care for her people.

Jules found her tending her family's cattle. She was leaning against one of them, her head looking tiny, nuzzling against its huge smooth head, so close to its long pair of sharp horns that they had carefully sculpted over time into an elaborate twisting shape. Each horned head in the herd was sculpted in this way.

Jules called out to her and she swung around to face her. Tears welled up in her eyes and she ran to Jules, burying her face in her shoulder. Jules rocked her in her arms and held her head. She told her that she was giving her her notebook to keep. It had Jules' personal notes about medical topics that she had encountered, their presentations, their natural courses, and treatments. She wanted Nyandeng to keep it to remember how they had worked together over the months. One day, perhaps, she would be able to read the English for herself, but for now, it would just be a remembrance of their time together. There was a smooth, decorated metal pen to go with it, and Jules clipped it on her shirt to carry with her on her rounds...

Then Jules was in the airport, with the others, getting ready to fly back to Paris. Masud was there, but he had a short flight back home to Egypt. She could feel his eyes on her, but neither of them wanted to say anything more. They just let it drop. When they called his flight, Masud looked one last time to her, and then turned away to his gate...

In Paris there were a few meetings, but she barely participated. She was quiet. Someone must have told them the story, because they let her go early, on to Calais where she kept an apartment near the city. She would walk to the bakery each day when she was in town, and sit at a small round table inside, exchanging pleasantries with the owner and some of the regulars who came for the bread and the pastries. She especially loved the croissants there, and the fresh coffee. But not this time. She had gone to the market for a little food, then straight on to her apartment. Jules sat in the dark, until the days had blended together into a hazy blur. She couldn't sleep, and she barely ate; just some stale bread and cheese brought from the market. She drank some wine to help her sleep – then some more, and more, when it wasn't enough...

For two days someone had come to her door and rung the bell, but she had not answered it. She was awake again, but in some kind of a stupor. She couldn't think straight. She was very hungry. She might be hallucinating.

She made her way to the bathroom and stripped off her clothes. The hot water felt luxurious and the soap smell cut through some of the mental fog. She needed to eat. After her shower, she dried off and dressed in some fresh clothes. She finished up in the bathroom and then went looking for her wallet and keys. The bell rang at the front door again. This time, she answered it, and there was a deliveryman with a package for her. It was a smallish rectangular box, wrapped in brown paper and string inside a thin, strong envelope that she had to slice open with a knife.

She unwrapped the box and inside the wrapping was a small hand-written card. In French, it said that there was news about the young girl if Jules wanted to know it. She would have to come to the staff meeting in Paris next week to hear the news. It was not what they thought. The card was signed "MK." Masud had sent it.

She opened the box and under a few layers of white tissue paper was a rough blue cloth. She lifted it up in her fingers and a small paper envelope slid across the cloth. She opened the flap at the end and looked inside. It was a necklace, silver, with a small silver heart dangling at the center. Jules looked at the heart, and on its surface was engraved " _Pour Aluel_ ", "For Aluel". She just held it in her hands, staring at it for a long time. Her brain was fuzzy, struggling with the meaning. And then she got it. The girl's name was Aluel. Masud was telling her that the girl's name was Aluel. He was saying to her that she must come to Paris – For Aluel.

 **Bethesda, September 2014**

Reese and Harold were in the hallway near the Security office in the hotel. But as Reese looked ahead where they needed to go, it looked like a trap. He changed directions, heading back to the lobby. Gunshots splintered the wooden door frame near his head, and Reese ducked down, pulling Harold low behind him. More gunshots from another angle cut across the flimsy door, spraying wood and cardboard pieces. Reese fired back at the same angle, and the shooting stopped long enough for them to move to a better spot, with more cover.

Reese heard an engine rev, then screeching, then a loud blast in the lobby next door. Glass was flying everywhere. Their SUV had plowed through the front doors into the lobby, and three people jumped out, firing at the two men who had Reese and Harold pinned down. The two men held their hands up, surrounded by the Team. Reese stepped out and slid their guns away with his foot. Shaw and Root picked up the guns, while Joey kept watch in the lobby for anyone else. They zip-tied the two men's hands, then pushed the men toward the SUV. Reese brought Harold out, and Harold grabbed his laptop from the housekeeping cart as they went past it. Reese put him in the front seat next to Fusco, while everyone else jumped into the back. Fusco floored it backwards through the lobby doors and outside, under the tall carport, then sped off down the road.

They turned off the main road a few miles away, into an industrial park. Low, flat-roofed-building after building stretched along the winding access road, until Fusco turned into a driveway, past a "For Sale/Lease" sign, then drove to the back, out of sight. Logan and Harper were already inside with Leon. Fusco had stashed them in the empty building before heading back with the rest of the team for Reese and Harold. Reese told Shaw to put the two prisoners in a separate room inside, and put Leon in with them to see if they recognized him. He wanted to keep the three from seeing Harold, too. Joey, Root, and Shaw got out with the two prisoners, while Reese stood next to the SUV, blocking the view of Harold in the front seat. Fusco came around the front and Reese nodded to him.

"Good timing, Lionel."

"Nah – just the driver this time. Everybody else did all the heavy lifting," he said back, with eyes lowered.

"Thought I had Harold safe, out of the action, and, instead, I almost got him killed in an ambush –"

"Nobody saw that coming," Fusco said. The two stood while Harold got out and they walked together into the back of the building. They could hear shouting and banging from one of the rooms and Reese looked over at Root, who smiled her mischievous smile. "That's my girl. If I know her, we should know where Greer and Grace are very soon." She nodded toward one of the rooms. "Sorry, Harry, this may get a little messy."

"Perhaps you should go in there, Mr. Reese, and prevent any other deaths," Harold said to him. Reese nodded and told Fusco to get Harold out of sight.

* * *

 **Chapter 37: Book of Fire; Wasn't Empty; Darkness Advanced; Like Long Ago;The Same One  
**

* * *

 **Calais, France, 2003 – rated T for descriptions of violence**

Jules was searching through drawers of old woodworking tools in the main floor of her apartment building. The building had been an abandoned carpentry shop at the edge of Calais when she had found it on one of her trips there. She had the address from a friend and had gone there for some supplies, not knowing that the business had closed years before. Something had happened to the owner, who had lived in the apartment above the shop for many years, and the building was long vacant. The windows had been broken, and vandals had taken much of the equipment out of the building, but had left a treasure trove of rusty old hand-tools.

In the same way that she and her dear friend, Harold Finch, loved books, Jules also had a love of woodworking. There was something about the feel of the wood, the smell of it, the coaxing of the shape with her Japanese hand saws, her French rasps and files, the clever joining of many parts to make one. All of it felt genetic to her. Her grandfather had been a self-taught carpenter, among many of his talents, and she was sure the love of woodworking had come from him. But, the noise and dangers of the table saw, drill press, and the other loud, heavy equipment in her grandfather's work shed had steered her away from them as a youngster. Instead, she loved the quiet, solitary pursuit of the project using only hand tools. It seemed to come naturally to her. She had not apprenticed with a more skilled craftsman. She had just looked at the tools and figured out for herself how she could use them. It didn't matter to her if it was the right way or not – it was right for her if she could make it work for her project.

When she had found this ruined shop, and looked inside the broken windows, she had felt like she was home. It would have been far easier to pick a different spot, to move right in and set up her household in a clean, modern space. There were other apartments in the city that were in beautiful, tree-lined neighborhoods with shops and restaurants nearby. But there was something special about this run-down, unhappy space that had called to her.

It took many months of frustration, negotiation, and explanation by her _notaire_ to get through the French legal tangle, but then success, and Jules was able to purchase the property. She began the slow renovation of the habitable upstairs apartment and the small, overgrown garden space in the back. Local tradesmen did some of the work – electrical and plumbing, and much of the masonry, but she did the carpentry work herself.

The downstairs shop was where she lived during the rest of the renovation, and so it had been the first part to clean and organize. She had a bed and a table with a few old kitchen chairs to use at first. And that was when she had found the cache of hand tools and some salvageable wood stock for projects, when she was readying the space. They had sat for years in the dirty, damp shop, and must have looked useless to the vandals. But not to her. Among the prized tools she had found was a set of rasps and another set of files from a company there in France that had been making them since the 1800's. They would cost a fortune if she could even find them today.

After she had cleaned them and was putting them away in their new home, an old wooden cabinet that had been there in the shop from the beginning, she had felt a presence in the room with her. The light was dim in the room, and it was just dusk outside, a time that she had always felt was powerful for her, when energy traveled more freely between states, when the vibration of those souls who had moved on could return, visit, and make themselves known to those in this plane.

There was a feeling of warmth behind her right shoulder, and she could feel a hand rest briefly on the back of her hand holding the rasps. No one was there. And yet, she could almost sense him as he had been, a big man in a leather apron, with powerful arms, but delicate, nimble hands that had held the same black handles that she was holding. These tools were works of art themselves, and her feeling when she held them in her hands had called this presence to her side. She could sense he was pleased that she had the same feeling for the work. It came to her that he would be there, watching over the place, and that she would be welcome there in his home.

After that, things had seemed to go more quickly and smoothly in the renovation. Ideas came to her easily, and she found new ways to imagine her projects. His presence was often there with her, at her shoulder, guiding her hands.

She was working on a project to re-create two wooden pieces that she had in her home in Upstate New York. They were in her training school down the hill in a little clearing in the woods above the lake. Her walls in the school held weapons that she used for training, but there were several there which were real weapons, and she had trained with them for years. Here in Calais, she had no access to them, but she knew how to make them, and that is what she was doing today.

She had just returned from Paris, and her meeting with Masud, who had told her the story of the young girl and the baby she had tried to save back in Southern Sudan. This mission had been one of the first she had made with her French humanitarian group, but it had turned out to be the most punishing, most devastating nine months of her life. The country was in the midst of another civil war, and the factions were using the country's primitive infrastructure and shaky political will to their advantage, launching strikes against rival groups along old tribal fault lines. The strikes were increasingly brutal and no one was spared. Men were slaughtered, women were raped and bludgeoned, and the children were taken. Guns had become more plentiful, and now every group had them. No longer was there hope of reaching a truce, of negotiating peace, when there were guns that could speak for you. The gun spoke louder than the word.

Masud had learned that the young girl was from a village in the northern part of Southern Sudan. Two young people had come forward to identify her. When new young people arrived in camp, within hours everyone knew it, and other young people would come to see if they knew the new arrival. During the night, after Jules had found the young girl at the edge of camp, and carried her in in her arms, the word had spread that there was a young girl there, who had a baby with her, but the baby was already dead when they arrived. Young people had come through during the night, and two of them believed they knew who the young girl was. She looked so different than when they had known her before. She was starved, emaciated. But on the back of her left arm was the scarring that they recognized from a bad burn when she was a child.

The two were brother and sister from a village near hers, and their family was related by marriage to hers. Two years ago, the girl's village had been overrun by soldiers from a rival tribe, and the men were rounded up and shot to death in front of the rest. The women were dragged in front of the children, stripped, raped, and then jammed into some of the wooden homes, which the soldiers then set ablaze, burning the women alive in front of their children. The children were taken by the soldiers. The boys were turned into child-soldiers who fought for them, and the girls were kept as slaves. This was a story repeated over and over all through the country. For years the atrocities went on, and millions of people moved from their homeland, desperate to escape the violence, only to fall victim to starvation, epidemics of disease, or caught in the crossfire of the civil war. There was no will to stop it until the next chapter, in Darfur, brought the world's attention to Sudan.

Masud had told her over dinner in Paris that the young girl, whose name was Aluel, had been one of the children taken captive by the soldiers who killed the adults and destroyed the girl's village. The girls were kept as slaves and then each was given to a soldier to use. The baby had been Aluel's. They could only guess that she had escaped after the birth of the baby, and the two of them had gone on foot to look for family. The village was destroyed and her parents were dead. Often, those who had been taken as she had, who had been abused, and somehow had been able to escape captivity, were not welcome if they found their way back to their tribe. They were turned away, unfit to marry, and with no place in the hierarchy of the tribe. If that had been her fate, no one could know for certain. But she had gone South, along with hundreds of thousands of others, fleeing ethnic cleansing, war, but she could not outrun starvation and disease.

Masud had sat across from Jules, quietly watching for her response to his news. It took time for it all to sink in. Masud was correct in his letter to her. It was not what they had thought. It was so much worse.

A thought had finally come to mind. She asked him if he knew who had been responsible, who had killed Aluel's family and taken her captive. He leaned forward and told her that it did not really matter. There was nothing that would be done to bring them to justice. It was a lawless land, and there was nothing to be done. She heard what he said, but asked him again. She sensed that he knew more than he was saying.

The brother and sister had identified the soldiers, who had come to their village, too, but had found no one there, and had burned the empty village to the ground, and stolen their cattle. Masud wrote the name on a small piece of paper and gave it to her. He said that the soldiers had moved south, chasing the fleeing population, who were unable to protect themselves from the marauding bands.

There was intelligence from French sources which tracked the groups in Sudan and shared some of the information with French humanitarian groups working there. Masud knew where the soldiers were last reported and he told Jules. She had not decided at that point what she would do. She was still trying to process what Masud had told her. She asked him about the package he had sent to her. In French, he told her:

"I wanted to see how you felt about everything – after some time had passed. I sent the blue sling that the girl used to carry her infant. I thought that it might be important to you to keep it. And the necklace was to tell you that I had found out who she was, and to ask you to meet me here to tell you her story. I am sorry, Jules. Truly, I am sorry to tell you this terrible news."

Jules had placed the tools she needed on the old kitchen table in the shop. She was looking through the salvage wood that was piled neatly at one end, but she couldn't find what she was looking for. Then her eyes found the old oak kitchen chairs that she had used when she had first lived in this room. The chairs were very old, made of fine-grained, heavy oak, nothing like the inferior ones that could be bought today. She turned one of the chairs upside down, and then back upright on its feet. The chair had spokes of oak on the back, with heavier squared pieces making up the frame of the back. The spokes were too thin for her use, but the wood of the frame could be shaped down to the one inch diameter dowel-shape that she wanted.

The final piece would be ten inches long and one inch in diameter, and at one end there would be a thin nylon loop of rope pinned deep into a hole in the end of the piece. The rope was to help hold the weapon properly in her hand. It was looped on the palm side of her thumb, at its base, and then coursed across the back of her outstretched hand, thumb pointed to the ceiling, with the wooden weapon dangling down toward the floor. The handle end was then brought up to the palm, held lightly with the last two fingers, and aimed with the thumb and index fingers. The weapon, called a bone-crusher, was used in a whipping motion by flicking the wrist, allowing the sliding motion at the palm where her ring and pinky fingers held the handle loosely to accentuate the force of the whip. The intense vibration of the oak wood, when it struck against bone, would crush it. It was an extremely lethal weapon when used in close-quarter fighting. There were specific points on the body that were ideal to strike, and they would bring down any adversary.

The second weapon was a longer oak weapon, that she would make in the length of her forearm. She would use the bone-crusher in her right hand, and the longer stick in her left hand. She needed to make two of the longer ones, because of the way she was going to transport them when she returned to Southern Sudan. She was going to replace the aluminum frame in a backpack with the wooden weapons, the two longer pieces threaded into the upright slots, and the shorter one threaded across the bottom of the frame. No one would be the wiser, and she could get her weapons into the country without anyone knowing. In fact, she was putting together a kit of weapons and supplies that she would carry with her, to level the playing field when she found her quarry.

In the third Book of the _Book of Five Rings_ , called Fire, Musashi describes the three strategies to control the enemy. _"The best way is to commence with your attack and in this way keep him off balance and on the defensive. The second way is to step back from his attack and draw him to you. The third way is, when you both attack together, to be stronger in spirit. There is nothing else besides these three methods. You either take the lead, hold him off and then take the lead, or force the lead at any given time...If you do not control the enemy, the enemy will control you."_

 **Bethesda, September, 2014- rated T for gun violence  
**

"Mr. Reese, I see them. Black SUV, Virginia plates. I am sending the plate number to you now. They are heading west approximately half a mile ahead of your position." Reese nodded, and increased his speed. Shaw was in the passenger seat, scanning to find the SUV ahead of them.

Harold was tracking it after it had left in a hurry from one of the buildings on their list of sites receiving a shipment of white tea during the last two months. The white tea was a marker for a visit from Greer. Wherever he had been, the white tea followed. They had compiled a list of four locations, besides the Virginia ranch, where Greer had presumably been, and were tracking movements into and out of the buildings. Two of them appeared empty, with no activity at all. The other two looked more promising. Harold was concerned that Grace could be hidden in some other location than the ranch, which was their prime focus for Greer's current location. Reese and Shaw agreed that they must find Grace before they attacked Greer, or they could lose the chance to rescue her.

Harold and Logan had teamed up to watch the roads around the two sites for activity, using traffic cam footage, and whatever other CCTV data was available to them, believing that Greer might tip his hand if he were trying to move Grace to a new location. Greer must know that two of his soldiers were missing, presumably captured, and could give up her location to Harold's team.

The target SUV was headed in the general direction of the Virginia ranch, but they could not be certain that that would be the final destination, and they wanted to intercept it before it reached a site with more security, and any more guns.

"There," Shaw said, pointing ahead, and Reese nodded.

"Too much traffic to try to PIT them here. Let's see if we can get them off the highway. I have a little surprise for them," Reese said. Shaw smiled, knowing what he meant, looking forward to trying it out in a real situation. They sped up. Their SUV looked like a family ride on its way to vacation. There were two mountain bikes on a front bumper mount, a little disguise to hide the real hardware. Reese began weaving in and out of traffic, gaining on the target SUV. When he got close, he sped up to their back bumper, swinging his car side-to-side, faster, slower, then faster again, attracting their attention. The target car was going to be trapped up ahead if they tried to speed up in their lane, and there was traffic on their left.

Reese could see their best option coming up on the right; an exit ramp off the highway. Sure enough, the target crossed the lanes at high speed, and shot through traffic, grazing more than one vehicle, and lurched over a grassy knoll, throwing dirt out behind the tires. Reese followed, bouncing over the same grass and dirt, down the steep embankment to the exit ramp roadway.

The target was accelerating down the ramp with no traffic ahead, but they were coming to a "T", and had to pick a direction. Reese and Shaw could see the layout of the road ahead and either direction they picked, Reese had them.

The target braked hard at the bottom of the ramp and swung wide, the rear sliding on the gravel, fishtailing the back until the driver got it under control. They headed left, with Reese right behind. On the straightaway Reese caught up, then reached down to a push button on the console next to him.

He brought the center of his SUV in line with the driver's side rear tire and pressed the console button. Two iron arms in front of the bikes on the bumper dropped forward and downward, deploying another set of arms that unfolded toward the target tire, riding just above the pavement. Between the arms was a special mesh and web triangle, broad side forward, that Reese was aiming toward the back tire of the target. Quickly, before they could evade, he sped up closer and the tire scooped the mesh, pulling it up and over the back tire, winding it around its axle, freezing the tire spin instantly, dragging the tire on the road surface, smoking, ripping itself to shreds with the friction.

The SUV fishtailed again with the one wheel locked. Reese slowed, metering out a tether line attached to the mesh. Then, Reese started braking his car and the tether dragged the target car, slower and slower, until it stopped in the middle of the road, undriveable. Everyone was out, taking cover, and firing. Shaw, on the passenger side, saw one of the shooters crouching low on the far side of the open front door of the SUV.

"That's not a good place to be," she said in a quiet voice.

She aimed low and squeezed off two shots at the legs below the door frame and saw him fall sideways, hit. He was exposed on the ground, and she continued shooting until he didn't move. Reese was running, closing the space between the two cars, with the back end of the target car shielding him from the driver. Shaw and Joey were moving up, low, on the passenger side, fanning out, guns forward, watching for anyone else coming out of the target car. The glass was tinted, and they couldn't see anything inside. They stayed low, under the windows, until they were even with the back passenger door. Shaw motioned to Joey, and reached up to the door handle. Joey readied to swing toward the opening, gun aimed there. Shaw popped the door, and shots rang out instantly from inside.

Joey and Shaw both fired in a heavy stream high up in the car, then swung their aim down and into the middle, as they moved forward. There were yells from inside, and then the shooting stopped. Joey swung around first and looked inside. The shooter was down. Joey couldn't see anyone else active inside. But the vehicle wasn't empty.

Reese was crouched at the back end of the SUV, and heard footsteps from the driver side moving toward him, fast. Then shots; one, two, three, four – from behind him. It was Root. She had held back while Reese moved up. Once the shooter had committed and was exposed, she had uncovered. Reese stayed crouched and leaned out around the bumper. The shooter was down, and Reese moved forward to find the weapon. Shaw yelled out "clear," on the other side of the car. Root joined Reese, who put his hand on her shoulder, nodding a thank you to her, and went forward to open the back door. Reese was behind her, looking over her shoulder; the whole inside of the car was splashed with blood – on the door, the seats and ceiling, pooling on the floor under the shooter's body. But, Reese and Root on the driver's side, and Shaw and Joey on the passenger's side were looking at another body lying across the seat, splattered with blood, not moving. Grace.

 **Southern Sudan, 2003**

Tonight would be the night. She had been watching the site for the last three days from a brushy area and some nearby sturdy trees that she could climb at night for a better view into their camp. Jules had seen the rhythm of their daily activities, could judge when the fewest soldiers would be on guard, when some of them would take one of the trucks and leave for a few hours or longer. And she knew they would return loud and useless, drunk.

She could smell rain coming. The sound of the rain would be to her advantage, and the soldiers would not be so quick to wander around outside, unexpectedly.

She was making her final preparations and once it was dark enough, she would be ready to go. Until then, she was looking through her equipment to be certain everything she brought was going to work for her, and to finish assembling the last couple of weapons she had brought in pieces along with her.

She pulled a belt from her backpack and held it in her hands. It looked like a decorative belt to wear with jeans. She had worn it that way during her flight over. It was made of equal lengths of colorful fabrics and other materials braided together. Jules started pulling it apart.

The core of the belt was a quarter-inch thick braided nylon rope, disguised by the other materials. Once she had freed it up, she pulled out two wooden pieces from the backpack, handles that she had made from one of the squared oak chair frames. They were a little longer than her fist's width, and flared out at the ends. They fit well in her hands, tapering smoothly, slightly narrower in the portion between the flared ends. She tied each end of the rope on one of the handles with a specific knot that would keep the smooth rope from slipping and opening once she started using it. The knots needed to maintain any force she applied to them without slipping. She wrapped the finished rope around her waist, tied a loose knot and pushed the handles into her waistband so they wouldn't clack together and give away her position as she was moving.

Next, she pulled out a tall, thin metal tin with an oval-shaped, raised shaker top, under a cap. Jules struck the shaker top lightly a few times with a rock, the sound smothered with a thick wad of cloth, and the top popped off. She dumped out the cornstarch powder she had put inside and three thin metal blades, taped together, fell out along with the powder. She unwrapped the tape and separated the three blades. In her bag was another wooden piece that looked like a decorative desk puzzle made of three overlapping shapes of oak that she had made in the shop in Calais. Jules tapped it on the ground and it separated into three wooden handles.

She slid the long tang of each knife blade into a slot on each handle, then wrapped a leather shoelace in a figure-of-eight at the top of the handle to hold the tang inside the slot securely.

She emptied the rest of the backpack and then started taking apart the backpack frame that she had fashioned out of the two long oak sticks and the shorter bone-crusher with the nylon loop handle at one end.

Lastly, she picked up a small rectangular tin and slid open its cover, revealing a stack of razor blades inside. She took out three of them and wrapped a small piece of very thin cardboard around the sharp edge of each blade. One she tucked into an opening she had made in the hem of her black pants. Another she tucked into a similar opening in the waistband of the same pants, in the back. The last one she tucked into a small cargo pocket on the side of her right thigh. These were added security in case she was taken prisoner and bound with her hands in front, behind, or if she were seated in a chair or on her belly with her hands tied to her ankles. She could likely reach one of the spots to get to a razor blade if she needed it to get free.

She examined each of her weapons closely and pushed, pulled, prodded each one to be sure it would perform. Everything except the bone-crusher was present in multiples.

Jules was wearing several layers of clothing, all black, to allow her to carry all of her weapons for quick access. Under her top layer, which was a rain shirt, slippery and thin, slightly loose, she wore a black turtleneck with long sleeves that fit closely on the body and arms. She slid one of the long oak batons inside the left sleeve of the turtleneck where it would stay without any other binding needed. On top of the left sleeve she rested one of the knives with its wooden handle, blade pointing up her forearm toward her elbow, and wrapped it with an elastic bandage that had a strip of hook-and-loop tape at the end. The tape stuck well to the elastic bandage, and held the knife firmly enough so it wouldn't drop off her arm, but was still easy to pull free from under the elastic. She adjusted the placement on her forearm until it felt just right.

The second knife she attached in the same way to her right lower leg on the outside of the calf, and the third knife was slid into a leather sheath sewn horizontally to the outside of her waistband in back, with a small elastic loop that held the knife in place at a peg on the handle.

The second baton and the bone-crusher were the final weapons and would be slid up inside the looser sleeves of the rain shirt, invisible until she needed them, and then they would drop down instantly into her hands. She had a thin pair of close-fitting black gloves and a black balaclava to pull over her head and face when she was ready to go. She had painted small non-slip rubber dots on the palm side of the gloves before she left on her trip, which would help her grip stay strong even when there was blood on the weapons.

Jules relaxed in the brush, well-hidden and cool enough now with the wind picking up before the rain came. She drank some water and had a light meal. There was a limited amount of water because it was heavy to transport, eight pounds per gallon, and in this climate she would normally need more to replace losses from the heat, but since it was the rainy season, her needs were less. She had to carry it in because the local water was not safe to drink, contaminated with guinea worm larva and other critters that she had no interest in ingesting. She rested. Nothing more was required right now.

Dusk was just starting and she could feel a growing sense of calm alertness. Dusk was powerful for her, and she had planned for her attack to begin right after this time of day.

A passage from _The Book of Five Rings_ came to her. " _You are undoubtedly familiar with men who are quiet and strong and seem to be doing nothing. They do not appear to be tense and do not appear to be in disarray. They simply appear...When it is necessary to attack, they do so with complete resolve, sure of themselves, neither over-bearing in attitude, nor with false humility."_ And so it was with her, as well.

Darkness advanced.

 **Bethesda, September, 2014**

"Harold, we have her," Shaw said. She waited and at first there was no response from him. She was confused. She thought he would be asking a dozen questions right away, but nothing. What did that mean?

"Miss Shaw, is she unharmed?" he finally responded. His voice sounded odd to her.

"She is drugged, Harold. Out of it right now, but otherwise okay. She looks – uh – " Shaw stopped when she saw Reese shaking his head, telling her not to say anything more.

"Miss Shaw, Mr. Reese, she cannot be allowed to see me."

Reese and Shaw looked at each other. They didn't know what to say. With everything that had happened, how could that be the right thing to do? What was she supposed to believe had happened to her, and why? What had she been told by Greer and his people?

"We're on our way back, Harold. Fifteen minutes." Shaw looked back to Reese, who was shaking his head, not certain what Finch was thinking.

When they got to the building, Reese opened the back door of the SUV while Shaw, Root and Joey jumped out and stood by to see if Reese needed any help. He slid Grace off the seat where she had been lying, and lifted her out of the car, swinging around, and carrying her into the back entrance of their hideout. There was a small room off to the side that looked like a break room for staff, with a rectangular table, where someone had spread a folded blanket. Reese lowered Grace onto the blanket for a little bit of comfort, instead of the bare tabletop. There was little else left inside this empty building.

Harold was in another room. He heard them carry her in and bring her to the table where he had placed the blanket for her. Then it was quiet again. She was just down the hall. A few steps away.

He was pacing in his room, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. She was just down the hall. A few steps away.

Reese and Shaw were standing together at the door of the break room, with their eyes on Grace. Then, hands softly moved them aside, and Harold's face appeared between them. His hands on their arms were shaking a little. They stayed there with him, until he stepped forward. He couldn't see her face yet, and he stepped closer, then a little closer, flooding him with a memory.

 _From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of someone standing at the end of the sidewalk, where it curved back away from the water. Someone was standing near an easel, holding a brush, and looking out at the same sunset, captivated, forgetting to paint._

 _He stepped a little closer, then a little closer, until he could see the lines drawn on the canvas, and the work in progress. He stepped closer, and then said out loud, "the sunsets are beautiful here."_

 _In his memory, the artist turned around in slow-motion, smiling, ready to agree. He saw it in her expression. He saw the gentle smile, the soft eyes, her auburn hair. His heart skipped. This is where he had first seen her, with the sunset behind her. It was Grace._

He reached out to the corner of the table to steady himself, and limped forward to her side. Soft eyes, auburn hair. His heart skipped. His breath came in and caught. Reese was behind him with a chair, and Harold's knees were buckling. He sat down, leaning forward to her, hands shaking, reaching to her face, brushing the hair back away.

"I'm so sorry, Grace," he said in a whisper near her ear.

"I'm so sorry. Look what I've done to you." He could see the blood splashed on her face, soaked into her clothes as she lay there, helpless. He lifted her hand in his, and saw the damage on her wrist, from rope, or cuffs.

He brought the wrist back to his face, leaning it back against his forehead, holding it there, her touch once again on his skin. He brought her wrist to his lips and held it there, like long ago.

In a whisper, "I love you, Grace."

 **Southern Sudan, 2003 – rated T for serious violence**

Darkness had fallen like a black velvet curtain over the land. There was no moon tonight – obscured behind heavy rain clouds which refused to rain, but gave the signs of it with a distant light-show in the sky and booming thunder, half-a-minute later. It was a fine night for battle.

Jules was kneeling on the soft, dry earth. She pulled a large bag toward her and opened the zippered portion. Inside were two items which she lifted gently, then raised them up to her bowed head, holding them to the middle of her brow.

In the Book of Water, the second chapter of _The Book of Five Rings,_ Musashi tells his students: " _the more you practice, the more the "spirit of the thing itself" will reveal itself to you... Remember that you must kill the enemy correctly. Not doing so is not the Way of the warrior...study my strategy...and it will become a part of your very being. It will become your spirit."_

Jules stood up, and made her final check of her weapons, touching each one in its place, satisfied with her preparation. She pulled on the thin black gloves and slipped the black balaclava over her head and face. Then, she walked forward toward the enemy camp, quietly, without hurry. There was a cluster of small wooden shacks at the center of the camp, and weak yellow light showed from dirty windows in the center one. The others were unlit.

After a short walk, Jules left the brush behind and entered the clearing that encircled their camp. Ahead was an old rusty drum where they burned wood sometimes, but it was empty tonight. The drum was near the center of the camp, and Jules knelt down next to it. In her hands were the two items from the bag and she unfurled the long blue cloth that Aluel had used as a sling to carry her infant before she had collapsed in Jules' arms.

Jules lowered it in a spiral to the ground, in the shape of a mountain, there at the center of the enemy camp. On the top of the cloth mountain, she placed the silver necklace, engraved with the words " _Pour Aluel",_ "For Aluel" on it.

In this place, before this battle would begin, Jules offered to the spirits of those who had been taken, a place where they could return to observe it now. It was the first part of killing the enemy correctly.

A door squealed open and three men filed from the center shack. The last one out left the door wide open behind him. The first two men walked further into the clearing, then one stopped, leaning forward. A flame danced briefly in the man's hands, and then a glow from a cigarette outlined his face for a moment. Jules had backed away from the drum, crouching low as she moved, and now stood at the edge of the last shack in the cluster.

The two men in the lead walked to the doors of a pickup truck parked there in the dirt, and got in. She could hear the three talking, but the dialect was not one she knew. The engine started, then faltered, and there was some yelling by the driver, who pounded on the dash, and tried again. It turned over this time, and the headlights flicked on, weakly, with a yellow cast to the lights.

They gunned it backwards and ran into a sapling in the dark, snapping its green trunk under the bed of the pickup. The driver and the passenger laughed out loud, then swung the truck around to the dirt road leading from camp. Jules heard the third man muttering something as he watched the truck pull away. Jules had already begun to move forward toward him, soundlessly approaching, the long oak baton and the bone-crusher dropping down from her sleeves into her hands.

In Water, Musashi said: " _It is always best to attack straight ahead. Straight-ahead attacks are decisive...Go straight to the heart of the enemy. Your main purpose as a warrior is to defeat the enemy...Do not be conscious of the particular technique you will use. This causes hesitation."_

The man was still muttering to himself when he turned around, and Jules stepped in close, swinging downward with her left arm and wrist first – cracking the long baton across his temple above the ear – snapping his head into the full force of the up-swinging strike from the bone-crusher in her right hand. He dropped to the ground without a sound.

Jules knelt down to listen around her. No steps, no sounds of others coming her way; only the gurgling from the man she had hit. She turned him onto his chest, with his face straight down in the loose soil. In a moment, the gurgling was over and there was silence.

She left him on the ground where he was, and moved quietly to the front of the center shack. At the edge of the window, she was able to look inside and there was a man sitting back in a chair, with his boots up on the top of a table.

The window was covered in black soot and she could smell kerosene. There were a few lanterns in the room, throwing off smokey light. This was the only soldier left on site. Two had gone out hours ago, and the two who had just left in the pickup made four. The one in the dirt outside was five, and this was number six. She stepped into the light from the doorway of the shack. It had a dirt floor, lucky – so that there would be no wood-floor-creaking under her feet. She slid the oak baton up inside her left sleeve, and the bone-crusher into the right one, then unwrapped the rope from around her waist, holding the handles in her gloved hands. Just through the doorway ahead, the man with his feet on the table was tipped back in his chair, his back to the doorway.

She stepped forward and saw his silhouette in the chair. She stepped closer and could hear his breathing, and a snore from the crimp in his neck with his head bent forward.

Jules flipped the rope over his head onto his chest and yanked back hard on the handles, throwing her right foot up instantly onto the back of his chair to keep it from falling backwards to the floor. The angle was perfect to compress the vessels in his neck, and he was frantic, reaching up behind him, trying to grab the rope, but his feet were off the ground, kicking helplessly on the tabletop. The rope strained in her hands, but the knots held at the handles. A few more seconds and he would be out, his neck compressed long enough to drop his pulse too low to stay conscious, and his airway choked off, too. He would still be alive. She was going to see what he knew about Aluel and the baby boy. But first, she had to make it safe to let him wake up.

She leaned him back onto the floor in the chair, and then took the chair away, rolling him onto his belly on the floor. She pulled out two sets of tongue depressors that she had wrapped with layers of duct tape from a thick roll of it back in Calais. Duct-tape-to-go. She wrapped the tape around the soldier's hands behind him, and then his feet, with one crossed behind the other before she taped them together. Still face-down, she slid her baton under his left arm and on top of his right arm in a joint lock behind his right elbow. Before she woke him, she took a quick look through the window outside. She could see the other soldier's body in the dirt outside, and no sign of anyone else returning yet.

She shook the soldier, and slapped him across the face until he started to respond. He strained to get up, but she tightened her grip on the baton, lifting it on the left and pressing it hard against the right elbow. He cried out in pain and stopped struggling. She could see his face, and his eyes, wide-open now.

She said "Aluel" out loud and she could see his reaction. In a split-second, she saw him register the sound of her voice, the fact that it was a female voice, the fact that she was holding him down by herself, and that he could certainly throw her off him if he tried. In the next split-second, before he tried, she had stood up, left foot now stepping down on her wood baton, turning him to his left, which raised his right elbow up to her. The bone-crusher slipped down into her right hand and she swung it high in an arc above the top of her head, holding it lightly with her ring and pinky fingers and aiming it with her thumb and index fingers. At the last moment, her wrist flicked it, accelerating the end even faster and it cracked down on his elbow, crushing bone. He was shrieking, trying to roll away from her, but he couldn't move. She lifted the collar of his shirt in her fist and said again, "Aluel." He was crying, and Jules could not understand him. She tried French, but his eyes did not register what she said. She said "baby" and "boy" in the two dialects she knew, but nothing. He was useless to her.

Two things happened just then. The rain began to fall outside, and there was a truck with the lights on, driving down the road, nearly to the dirt road that led to the camp.

The truck was lurching forward and then slowing down for a little while, then lurching forward again. Two men were shouting, and two others, inside the truck, were laughing. The four soldiers were returning together to the camp.

Jules looked down at the soldier at her feet. In the Book of Fire, the third chapter, Musashi warned his students. _"At times it may be difficult for you to continue with your attack when the enemy is not yet beaten in body and spirit, but it is precisely at this time that you must reach into the abyss and bring yourself to the point where you are able to totally destroy the enemy. By reaching into the abyss of yourself, you are able to reach into the abyss of the enemy and slay him properly and with the correct execution of purpose."_ She raised the bone-crusher high and brought it down with full force to the side of his head before he could call out to warn his men.

In the Book of Fire, Musashi called the high vibration of a warrior in the midst of battle " _the body and spirit of stone – when you truly understand the Way, you can take any form that you want to. It is almost as if you had developed miraculous powers. You can become as light as a feather, as fluid as water, or as stiff as a board_..."

Jules entered the shadows and found her way to the outside, standing in the trees while the truck lurched forward along the dirt road. She could see that the two men who had left in the balky pickup truck were on foot, yelling at the other two soldiers, trying to get them to stop. But the men slowed down just long enough for them to get close, then accelerated away from them, laughing and blowing the horn as they drove out of reach. The men on the road were hoarse from yelling and cursing, and they were still far from the camp. The truck had left them behind now.

It was rolling up toward Jules, side-swiping bushes and branches as the driver tried to aim the truck up the narrow passage. He was very drunk. He cut the engine at the end of the road and turned off his lights.

Jules could hear the two of them inside the darkened cab, trying to whisper, but still way too loud, and then breaking into more laughter, then whispering again. They were just feet away from her. The man on the passenger side got out first, weaving as he walked toward the shacks. Jules had hopped up onto the bed of the truck when he opened his door to get out. The driver got out next, calling out to the first man, then stopped, reaching down to unzip himself, relieving himself toward the trees where Jules had just been standing.

She was now standing behind and up above him in the truck bed, with her rope in her hands. She flung the loop over his head and jerked the driver backwards against the side of the truck, with her foot at the nape of his neck, pushing his throat harder against the choking rope. The rain was coming down harder now, and thunder rumbled across the sky. The soldier's sounds of struggle were muffled in them.

When he finally collapsed, from his pulse dropping too low for too long, he began to slide down the side of the truck, but Jules held him up by his neck with the rope, crouching down in the truck bed, bending the rope over the edge. She could see metal sticking up, from the frame of an old canopy that had once covered the truck bed. She wound the rope around the metal and tied it off, leaving the soldier hanging over the side by his neck. She needed to find the other two soldiers in the dark and the rain.

In Water, Musashi said _"enemies continue to come – when you are fighting more than one enemy you must use both of your swords and strike quickly and strongly without hesitation...You must also fight with the attitude of no-mind. Do not think of possible outcomes until you have finished with your battle...think only of destroying the enemy and the technique will flow of itself."_

Jules was crouched in the truck bed, peering down the dirt road for any sign of the two men. The first flash of lightning overhead lit the road briefly, and off in the distance she could see movement on the road. She could see knees lifting, and arms swinging as the men were hiking in from the road in the pouring rain.

Jules let herself over the edge of the truck and melted into the nearby trees. Lightning and thunder were coming right at them in the sky and the two men began to run toward the shacks. Jules bent forward, ready to leap out.

When the first one passed by, she ran forward, raising her right arm high, aiming the bone-crusher and whipping it against the back of his bent knees. He screamed out, knees buckling under him, and went down hard onto the muddy road. As she passed by him on the run, without slowing, her left arm circled down, then back, and high up, around in a smooth hard circle, slashing down like a sword across his head.

Still running, Jules caught up with the second man running in the rain, who was just sensing some commotion behind him. She swung her right arm sideways in the air, and whipped her weapon forward into the man's left back, crushing ribs, twisting him toward his right. He lost his balance in the mud, and fell hard onto the left side. He was screaming and trying to get to his rifle, and Jules was leaping in the air over him, whipping the bone-crusher down across his right forearm, breaking the arm holding the rifle. The rifle dropped down in the mud, and she saw that he couldn't pick it up. His hand was useless on the right. He was writhing on the ground, and she crouched down just past him, checking all around her for a moment, looking for the missing soldier. No one was there.

In the lightning flash she could see the injured soldier getting ready to call out for help. She leaped toward him in the light, and as her right arm swung high up over her head, she saw his eyes find her in the lightning, fly wide open, seeing Death approaching. He was mesmerized – watching her – and did not cry out.

And then the end – slapping his head on the left side with her baton, snapping it toward the right, into the on-coming crush with her right hand. Blood and bits of bone flew up in a spray across her face.

She swung quickly around to see that no one was coming. The two men were finished. She raised her weapons in the air over her head to the heavens, and shook them, but made no warrior victory scream yet. There was one left to find.

Jules returned to the edge of the dirt road, to the trees, and followed the tree-line back to the truck. The soldier she had left hanging from her rope was still there, limp now, dead. She passed him by, and moved forward in the shadows to the cluster of shacks. She checked for the first soldier she had killed, and he was there in the mud, with the rain falling on his body.

She crossed again to the window, standing at the side of it, and looked in. The soldier with his boots on the table was down on his belly on the floor where she had left him, bound with tape. She checked for any sign of the missing soldier, but saw no movement inside the shack.

In Water, Musashi said " _making yourself bigger than you are – this is a strong warrior attitude. Extend your spirit above and beyond the enemy's body and spirit. Never cringe in fear...You first beat the enemy with your spirit and then you beat the enemy with your hands or your sword...Go for the kill with utter resolve and commitment."_

Jules crouched low and passed under the window toward the open front door of the shack. She stood at the side of the opening, listening for any movement inside. Rain was falling softly but the lightning and thunder had stopped just now, as though the heavens had noticed, and were waiting.

She crouched low again at the side of the door, and peered inside quickly. No one was there. No sound came from the shack. She emptied herself of any thoughts, and readied her weapons in her hands. She took a deep breath in, expanding herself bigger than she was, and leaped forward into the shack, rolling in a tight ball, arms held away from her body with her weapons, then up onto her feet, at a wall. No sound. At the end of the short hall to her right would be the body she had left bound with tape. She peered down the hallway and saw no movement, heard no sound.

Then a soft sound. She strained to hear it. Nothing. Then it came again, so softly. She crouched down low and looked around the wall. Another short hallway toward the left. No movement. No sound. Then a louder sound. It was a snore.

She raised up and crept down the hallway, soundlessly, on the dirt floor. Eight steps and she was there at the doorway in the darkness. Her eyes had to adjust to it, then she could see a small room, with a bed on the far wall. No window. No lights inside. Just breathing.

She turned back to look where she had come from, and no one was there behind her. She took a breath and moved, crouching, into the room a step, and looked left and right. Nothing. Forward another step, and the breathing stopped. She raised her right arm.

A loud snore startled her, and then she stood up next to the man on the bed. His rifle was standing up against the bedpost near his head. She reached out for it, and lifted it in her left hand, keeping her right hand ready if he woke.

In Water, Musashi gave license to his students, who studied the Warrior's Way with two swords. " _Constant practice and becoming one with your sword are essential. Even if you should pick up a different weapon, by knowing the heart and nature of your own weapon, you will be able to defeat men because of your sensitivity to the one."_

She stepped back one step and then reached out with his rifle, poking him with the end. He didn't move. He snored. She poked him again harder, but nothing. Then she turned the butt end toward him and smacked it on his elbow. He lurched up, snorting in pain, raising up from his bed. She backed up another step away from his hands, aiming the rifle toward his chest. The bone-crusher hung down toward the floor on its strap, looped over the back of her right thumb.

He was sitting up on the side of his bed, holding his elbow, and breathing out the smell of liquor into her face. He was drunk, but waking quickly enough to make him dangerous. Jules realized she hadn't checked the rifle to see if there was a safety left on, and she swung it to the wall behind him and pulled the trigger. Nothing. He heard the sound and leaped forward toward her, but she swung the butt of it around like a baseball bat toward his face, clipping his jaw, but knocking the gun from her hands. She jumped backwards, and he was on his knees on the floor, reaching for the rifle.

She swung the bone-crusher up into the palm of her right hand, continuing the motion toward the right, at hip height, then made a hairpin turn and came back toward the left, whipping the weapon at the last moment, slashing across his cheek and ear on his left side. The force threw him off balance, and he fell hard onto his right shoulder, but Jules had lost track of the gun in the darkness.

She heard the sound of a man, crazed, injured, thrashing, getting to his knees, and raising himself up to his feet. Something dark was dripping from his face, and his jaw was not working. She could see his eyes, now awake and violent, as he lurched toward her, slamming her back to the wall next to the door. She reached with her right hand to her waist, at her back, and found the wooden handle of the knife – and in the next second he was on her at the wall, with his forearm at her neck.

It took him a moment to know that he was impaled on her knife, long enough for her to feel his rage at her throat. But then he leaned back, stepped back one step, and slowly looked down at his chest, to see the handle sticking out, blood streaming from the wound. His eyes raised to hers, and she could see the surprise, the slight shake of his head, as though he couldn't quite believe this was happening. He lurched to the doorway, with his right hand coming up to his chest, and walked, stiff-legged, a few steps into the hallway. Then he dropped down to his knees, and reached out to the wall, leaning to his left, turning to rest with his back against the hallway wall, and legs in a tangle beneath him. Jules looked at him there, and he looked helpless, but she readied herself, and walked forward toward him. She leaned over and put her hand on the knife handle, so he couldn't try to grab it and use it against her. She saw the light leaving his eyes, as he was dying there, and she knelt down and shook him, saying "Aluel" to him. His eyes briefly opened wider, as though he knew the name, but then they were rolling back into his head, no longer focused, and then he was still.

She crouched down, and took her hand off her knife handle, leaning back against the far wall, looking at the soldier. There were some small twitches in his muscles as his body was shutting down, and there was a slight moist sheen on his skin, as the color drained from him to an ashen gray.

In a little while, she touched his skin, and it was already cooling. Then, there was a glint of light from something on his shirt that caught her attention. The dim yellow light from the main room down the hallway was just bright enough to reflect off something metallic on his shirt. She reached for it, in his chest pocket, and lifted it up toward her face to see it better in the bad light. It was a pen, a smooth, decorated metal pen. It was the same one she had gifted to her youngest student, Nyandeng.


	8. Part 7

**Part 7:**

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 **Chapter 38: Deep Woods; Full Moon; Was This What That Was?  
**

* * *

 **Upstate New York, November, 2016**

There was a slight itching sensation on the skin just below her umbilicus, on and off, on and off, like a slow ocean wave breaking, then again, and again, on the shore. And higher up, in front of her chest, another sensation was moving through, like a bird flapping or fluttering in a cage, a disturbance that kept getting stronger.

Finally, it woke her from her first really sound sleep since she had been back in the States. She woke up in her bed, not the place she would have chosen to go to sleep, but that's where she was tonight. Jules had gotten so used to sleeping in huge tents, in old buildings like barracks, in the open air sometimes, that it was hard for her to sleep in a bed in a bedroom. It felt claustrophobic, confining, in there. There was not enough air around her in a bedroom, and she would usually pick a larger, more open space, like the couch in her living room, where the ceiling was vaulted high overhead.

It took a minute to get her bearings. And then she knew why she was waking up in the middle of the night like this. Reese was on his way. She could feel his energy, like a wobbling or fluttering feeling in the space she held for him, in front of her chest.

That space was a place she had created for him on the first day they had met. It was a place she had fashioned in the shape of an upright cylinder in the air in front of her chest. And in this space, which was only for Reese, she had allowed the energy of her hands on him to imprint him to that space, just as she had imprinted him with her energy. She was then aware of him after that, even from a distance, like a vibration. It could be soft and slow, or stronger and more insistent, like now. It told her things about him, about his state of mind – whether he was resting or active, pensive or agitated. As long as she held that space for him, she could eavesdrop on him in this way.

The itching sensation, too, was from a certain energy connection that she kept with him, and with many others, who were close to her. If someone close to her came near, there was a slight itch on the skin and she would know that he or she was nearby. Like an umbilical knowing.

These things were hard to describe to people, unless they also had had the same experiences, but Jules had had them all of her life. When she was young, she grew up thinking everyone had them and paid attention to them. Now, they were just part of her day-to-day life, and she didn't give them much thought. They were always there, guiding and informing her.

Jules got up from bed, and put on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt over her sleeping clothes. It was chilly in the house. She went down the hall to the kitchen and in the soft light of the blue nightlight in the socket near the doorway, she ran the water in the kitchen faucet for a bit, to freshen the water out of the pipes. She filled the glass carafe and poured it into the coffeemaker, then ground some fragrant beans, and dumped them into the basket. She got the coffee started, and whenever Reese got there, it would be just fine.

Her sense of things was always better when she was a little tired. She didn't go automatically into the beta state – analyzing, critiquing, pushing for answers. When she was drowsy, her thoughts were more gentle, intuitive, in the Flow. Keeping her brain turned off and out of the way was the best way to get to what she wanted when she was working on the energy plane. Conscious thought just muddied the waters, and she couldn't see as well.

While the coffee was dripping through, she went into the living room and got a fire started in the fireplace. Soon, there was a warm, crackling fire dancing in the darkness of the room, and the coffee was just ending.

She had put scalding hot water into a thermos to preheat it, before she poured the dark, rich brew from the carafe into it. The thermos would keep it hot for hours without burning it and wrecking its taste. For a moment, it reminded her of a trip to China years before. At the door in the old hotel room where she was staying, there was always a thermos of hot tea, jasmine tea, that somehow stayed boiling hot all day. It was amazing to her that the heat had not ruined the delicate flavor of the jasmine, and that it could stay that hot all day. That had been the best jasmine tea she had ever tasted, and no matter how many times she had tried to find one like it, none had ever compared to that one. She poured the last of the carafe into a cup for herself, and then went out into the living room to wait for Reese.

Her cup was near-done and she had leaned back to rest against the high back of the leather couch, with an afghan thrown over her, when she heard the car door outside. The lights were off in the house, and he might be holding back, thinking he would wake her, so she got up and went to the door to meet him.

"Did I wake you up?" he asked, walking across her lawn in front.

"No. I was awake," she said, drowsy, relaxed from the warm coffee and firelight. He smiled a little, and shook his head. He got the feeling that somehow she always seemed to know when he was on his way. That should have been scary, or creepy, something; but it didn't bother him. It made him imagine that that would be how it would feel if you were driving to your family's house, and they were all there – maybe for Thanksgiving dinner – and they were all looking forward to having you get there.

Ah, that hurt – just thinking about it gave him a sudden ache in the chest, an empty feeling inside. He wondered why the thought had even come into his head.

"Coffee's made. Would you like some?" When he didn't answer, she had turned around to check, and he was lost in thought. He hadn't heard her question. In the firelight from the living room, she could see that his face looked stricken, though, as if something had reached in and twisted him in the heart. She turned to face him, and went back for him, wrapping her arms around him, as a deep painful sound came up out of him. He shut it down right away, but that first sound had said everything needed to Jules, told her why he was here, in the middle of the night.

She pulled him with her, down the hall, past the kitchen, and then down the long hall to her treatment room, walking in the dark. He let her take him, and take his jacket and sweater. He kicked off his shoes, and let her lay him back on the table, lifting his knees for the thick fabric bolster she slid under to hold them up. He could feel his back flatten down on the thick padding of the table, and then the soft, fragrant flannel sheet she always doubled over to cover him. He could smell cinnamon from the flannel, and even that was enough to let him let go of some of the pain. The ache in the center of his chest was still there, but maybe a little less.

She went to the player and in the darkness was still able to find the specific CD that would capture the feeling Reese was having, and bring it out even more, where they could deal with it together. At this time of the night, with the air so crisp and cool, the sound of this music would carry throughout the house – like in a cathedral of trees high in the mountains. This music was solo piano, blended with sounds of water lapping, a canoe paddling along, and birds calling out in the deep woods all around. You could almost smell the pines, and feel the cool damp air, see the mist rising up to the night sky high overhead.

It would take Reese to a place far from his home in Manhattan to a place she thought he could imagine. She remembered that he had once said he lived in California when he was in the Rangers long ago. Perhaps he could conjure the feeling of the deep woods, the Cascades, captured in this music. It was so cleansing, so healing, to go there with this music – the piano, and the water sounds, and the birds.

She started the piece, and then decided to leave all the lights off for this session. The sound of the music would fill the space in the darkness around them as if they were there, high in the mountains, in the deep woods. No one could tell in the darkness. The beauty was all around them.

She sat down at his head and placed her hands on him, turning it one way, then slowly back the other way, in time with the paddling of the canoe, and she could feel him giving himself over to her, bit by bit. He was drinking in the sounds of the woods and the stream, the canoe, and the birds.

The music picked up the thread of that feeling at her front door, and soon there were tears welling behind closed eyes, quietly sliding down his face with the soaring sounds of the deep woods in the high mountains, far from here. The ache turned sharp, like an arrow strike through the chest. So alone. So lonely. That sound of piano, all alone, in the woods, with the water lapping, and the birds calling. No one. He had no one.

 **Colorado, August, 1990**

Reese was in the mountain stream again, young again, splashing in the water for hours, and then climbing out on the big flat rock that lay half-in in the deepest part of the stream. The afternoon sun was getting low enough to hide in the trees, cooling the air. He was drowsy, lying on the rock, drying off in the gentle warmth of the stone underneath him there. And then he heard her coming, and smiled. He sat up on the rock and looked to the far side, where loose soil and small stones were sliding down the bank under her feet.

A white-tailed doe with her two spotted fawns, were coming down the bank to the water's edge to drink. She led the way, checking for any danger, twitching her nose, and flicking her ears, then moving down closer to the water, ahead of her fawns, which still had their spots but were strong and agile now. They crowded her down to the water, and then the three drank together. Reese saw her raise her head to check again for any danger, and her eyes fell on him, sitting on the flat rock, just across the stream. Her tail swiveled, flashing white fur, but her face was tranquil. She kept her eyes on him, and he was transfixed again. He was mesmerized by her large, exquisite eyes. He didn't want to look away from them. Reese felt like she could look right through him, like she could see down into his soul. And then he saw her bend forward, bend down low with her head, to him, acknowledging. He felt he should do the same, bow down to her, too; and so he did, gently, slowly, so she didn't startle.

She stood there, regarding him with those eyes, and he felt again that she was trying to tell him something that he would not know how to understand. But, this time, he heard her. He knew, this time, what she had said to him those many years ago.

" _I am the mother_ ," she said to him. A sound burst from him, and tears began to fall. He could hear her. He could hear her. And he nodded to her, so she would know that he understood her.

" _These are my sons._ " He nodded to her again, and looked where she was looking, at one of the twin fawns. The fawn lifted his head to Reese, and snorted, stamping his feet under him, lifting his head high, then dropping it down, in his display of youthful strength. He seemed familiar to Reese. The look in his eyes was an echo of something barely familiar - something that went far back to his earliest memories.

" _He is your brother,_ "she said to Reese, turning her head to one side, watching for his reaction. He could see her soft eyes on him, and there was no mistake. She had clearly said it. She stood there, watching him, and then he looked to the other fawn, who raised his head from the stream, looking Reese in the eyes. Reese drew in a breath, then another, seeing himself in those eyes.

He knew it was true. He was seeing himself in those eyes.

She was the mother, and she had two sons, twins. The voice of a mother he had never known was speaking to him now through this wild doe, telling him there was another like him. He had a brother.

Rain began to fall, tapping softly on the leaves and branches of the trees in the woods on all sides of them. A lone piano sang a haunting song to the woods, and birds called back to reassure. The sound lifted him high above, carrying him to the high peaks, soaring like an eagle along the craggy ledges, swooping down above the trees, in the mist and the rain, surveying all below. Then down through the trees, above the stream, where it flew above a boy on a rock, sliding down into the water, making his way to three deer at the edge of the stream. They did not seem to mind as he approached them in the water, stepping higher and higher from the stream in front of them. The doe backed away, and made space for him on the soil of the bank. The young bucks snorted, and stamped their feet, rearing up with their heads as he approached them, but they did not turn to run.

The doe let him approach, and then walked forward to Reese, face-to-face, with her large dark eyes on him, breathing softly, waiting. He reached out with his hand, slowly, and she let him touch her face with his hand. He felt the warmth of her face, and he saw her turn her head, pressing his hand against her even more. She regarded him again, looking at his reaction, and then moved forward, closer, touching his face with hers. He could smell her, feel the outline of her head against his cheek, and he closed his eyes, resting his face against hers. In his head he heard her voice.

" _Go. Find your brother. He is waiting for you."_

 **Bellingham, Washington, November 14, 2016**

It was the Northwest, so of course it was expected to be cloudy, maybe rainy, too, but at least cloudy. Reese was on his way to Bellingham, driving US 5 along the coast of Washington, north from Seattle, to this sea-side city snugged up close to the Canadian border. He was trying to keep his mind on the driving, but the scenery and his destination pulled his attention away.

So much had happened in a short time. Once he suspected that he could have a brother, he had contacted Finch directly and asked him to check for him. At the time, his hands were shaking so badly he couldn't have used the computer if his life depended on it. He was pacing back and forth in the kitchen at Jules' house, waiting for an answer, and Finch had dropped everything, meaning he got up out of bed in the middle of the night, as soon as Reese had called, knowing how much this would mean to Reese. Harold was sitting at his computer, typing as quickly as he could, tracking through old records, but some important ones were from long enough back that they weren't accessible online. That wasn't going to stop him.

Jules had coaxed Reese out of the kitchen, got him to get the fire going again in the fireplace. It was cold in the house with the flue open and the fire out. She poured something stronger than coffee for him, and sat him down on the L-shaped couch to help him relax. She could see his leg jumping, and he was staring, not sure whether to believe this or not. How could he not know this? How could his father, and grandfather have kept this from him? It was cruel, if it was true.

They waited long into the night and into morning, just talking there on the L-shaped couch. Then, Jules had gotten up to start breakfast for them when the call came back from Harold. Reese was standing up, his face frozen while he listened to Harold say it was true. Reese had a brother. Harold had found a way to track back through the records. He called Reese as soon as he had everything. But, Reese had told him to stop; he didn't want to know details just yet. He just wanted to know if it was true, really true.

"Oh, yes, John. I am certain. You have a twin brother," Harold had said. Reese started to walk around. Nervous energy. He was stunned, thrilled, angry, every emotion hitting him at once. His mind was racing. Should he contact him? Out of the blue, like this – how would he react? What if he didn't want to know he had a brother? What if he was a drifter and Reese couldn't track him down? He told Harold what he was thinking, and Harold stopped him right away. Reese could hear Harold smiling on the other end of the phone.

"John, I'm certain that you should contact them. They're looking for you." They? Reese was picturing someone like himself, a loner, a recluse living in some hut up in Alaska, or something. He could only stand there, nodding his head, trying to take in all of this news. Them.

So, here he was, on US 5, heading north from Seattle, nearly to Bellingham, where he had a brother, a family. He almost missed the 10,000-foot high mountain off to the east looking down on Bellingham; he was so focused, looking straight-ahead, intent.

The North Cascades soared high, craggy, magnificent, just miles away. It looked like a postcard, this town – impossibly beautiful nestled in the foothills of the Cascades and at the edge of a Bay in Puget Sound. The town was small, quaint by Manhattan standards. It was a cluster of homes and businesses laid out in a grid of land that rose from sea-level up toward the mountains.

And suddenly, he was there. A big house, Craftsman-style, with an orange door, and a green lawn swinging around the side to the back. He parked across the street, and sat in his car, looking at the house. His leg was jumping, and he was trying to slow his breathing. His hands were sweaty and he dried them on his pants. Time to go.

As he walked up the sidewalk, he could see a flag out front with a design he had seen all over town. Green stripes on the right, a blue half-moon on the left with a stack of wavy white lines in the half-moon and two four-pointed stars in the background. It told the history of the town in pictures. There were paper cut-outs in their windows of pumpkins, haystacks, and "Happy Thanksgiving" lettered over the door. A large mat had "Welcome" stenciled on it. It was all a little overwhelming.

The door opened before he got to it, and a small girl, maybe 4 or 5, with long glossy black hair looked up, smiling, and said "Hi, Uncle Jake."

She reached up for his hand and pulled him into the house after her. Inside, everyone was moving quickly, intently, as though executing a well-rehearsed plan. An older girl, maybe twelve, was on the speakerphone, telling someone "her water broke 5 minutes ago. She's getting into the tub." Then, there was a woman's voice on the other end saying "oh, my gosh. I'm just down the street getting groceries, Katie. I'll leave everything and come right now. Tell her not to push!"

Then Katie clicked another number and a man's familiar voice said hello. "Dad, mom's water broke and she's getting into the tub. I called Connie, but she's not going to make it in time."

Reese didn't hear the next words. There was a high-pitched sound in his ears for a moment, and his pulse began to gallop. He dropped the little girl's hand and walked toward Katie, who was ending her call, and then she looked up to see Reese.

"Hi, Uncle Jake. You made it just in time." She ran up the stairs, and half-way up she turned around and called out to him. He followed her up the stairs and down the hall to a large master bedroom, and then into a bathroom. There was a naked very pregnant woman in a large bathtub, with kids all around her, looking into the water.

"Take a seat, Uncle Jake," Katie said. He looked around him for a chair or someplace out of the way, but Katie motioned over there, by the tub.

"Over here. You don't want to miss this." More kids were coming into the bathroom from downstairs, and they looked at Reese and smiled, then took up places around the tub. The naked woman was speaking softly to them, telling them what was happening, what to expect and they were watching in the water for their new baby to arrive. The naked woman turned to look over her shoulder to Reese.

"I would get up, but..." she said, with a quick smile before the next contraction. She was blowing, blowing, and then she leaned back against the side of the tub. She called to Reese, reaching out her hand to him, and he thought she was in trouble and needed his help. His pulse began pounding, and that high-pitched sound in his ears was starting again. He went to her side, sitting down on the floor next to the tub. He threw off his jacket, and rolled up his sleeves, unclipped his watch and stashed it quickly in his pants pocket. The naked woman grabbed his hand and squeezed it for a moment, pressing back against the side of the tub, and then something extraordinary happened, right in front of him.

A baby's head appeared underwater, covered in black hair. Then, a moment later, a shoulder appeared, and the baby was turning around so Reese could see its wrinkly face. And then, it slid out into the water in a gush of stuff that Reese didn't care to look at. He was looking at the baby, who was covered in some greasy-looking goo, but suddenly moving, awake, eyes open under water. The naked woman guided his hands to the baby, and he wrapped his hands around the little being in the tub. She was watching his face as he held this new life. Warm water, slippery baby.

Reese felt like he would burst. He couldn't believe what was there in his hands. A little person, cruising underwater, eyes open, looking up through the water at him. His heart was bursting – in the best possible way.

He lifted the baby's head above the water, and saw it take its first breath of air. No crying, no fussing, just taking everything in with wide-open eyes.

Then Katie was kneeling next to him, leaning against him and snapping plastic clamps down securely on the umbilical cord, with a little space between them. She handed Reese a surgical scissor from a blue envelope.

"All yours, Uncle Jake," she said, and pointed at the space between the two clamps. She wanted him to cut the cord. The naked woman smiled and nodded. She had lifted the baby from his hands to her chest, lifting the cord to Reese, and he reached out with the scissors, cutting through the thick ropey cord – softer than he expected. And then the little boy was free.

"Mommy?" one of the kids called out.

"Yes, baby," she said back, turning the newborn to her breast, warming him on her skin.

"Are we going to keep our new baby?"

"Yes, baby. Would you like to come and say hello?" The little girl, the one who had brought Reese into the house downstairs, walked around past him on the floor to the side of her mother, and tried to lean over the tub to reach the baby. She looked over to Reese for help, and he lifted her onto his knee, steadying her as she bent over to kiss her new brother. She stood up and gave her mom a kiss, too, then she leaned back snuggling against Reese, with her arm around his neck, while she looked around at the scene.

There were sounds of footsteps on the stairs, and then a woman rushed through the bathroom doorway, and stopped to take it all in. She smiled a relieved smile that all seemed fine in there. Then to Reese: "You must be Jake. Welcome," she said. "I'm Connie, the midwife."

"Uncle Jake catched the baby," the little one on Reese's knee said. The kids chuckled around the tub, and Connie walked forward to take a look at her two patients.

"He did? Well, good catch, Uncle Jake," Connie said, smiling. Then, there were sounds of more footsteps on the stairs, and a man came running through the bedroom into the bathroom, and stopped dead in his tracks.

"Is everyone okay?" he said. Connie called out yes to him. Reese was getting up from the floor, with the little girl in his arms, her arm still wrapped around his neck.

"Daddy, Uncle Jake catched the baby," she said, chewing on the end of a ribbon in her hair.

"Did he?" He stepped into the bathroom and threw his arms out wide, his eyes glistening, reaching out for Reese, wrapping him and his little girl in his arms.

"Our prayers are answered," he said, overcome.

Reese was shaking, choking back tears, holding onto this stranger who had grown up in another place, had had a separate life for all of these years. He was someone Reese didn't know at all, and yet someone who looked identical to Reese himself. It was mind-blowing – to look at another person on the planet who looked just like you, but wasn't you.

The men slapped each other on the back at the end of their long embrace, and Reese's brother went to give his wife and new baby kisses and hugs. Then he stood up and said that they should all give Mommy and Connie some time to get their new brother checked out, and go downstairs for some snacks.

The kids cheered and ran out past the grown-ups, thundering down the stairs ahead of them. The little one in Reese's arms pointed where she wanted to go, and Reese dutifully obliged. He rubbed her cheek with his thumb to wipe off some crumbs and asked her what her name was.

"Annie," she said, tipping back over Reese's arm, so he had to catch her from falling backwards. His arm was already getting tired from holding her up. How did these Moms do it, he thought? How did they hold their kids on their hips for hours while they were busy doing ten other things? It was all very mysterious – so much he didn't know about families.

The men walked down the stairs, Matt's arm wrapped around Reese's shoulders. They herded the kids together and passed out snacks to them in the kitchen. Katie seemed to be in charge of the littlest ones, corralling them, cutting up the snacks into smaller pieces for them, wiping up the spills after them.

She looked like her Mom. Actually, as Reese went around the room, kid after kid, they all looked more like their Mom than like their Dad. He counted. Seven kids. Who does that, nowadays? And now a brand new one upstairs!

Reese looked down and one of the little ones had come over and was standing with his arm around Reese's knee, and there was another one climbing up onto his lap. Dad was sitting across from him, smiling as he watched Reese submit to his kids. He could just imagine how Reese was feeling right now. It was so good to have him here, at last.

In a little while, Connie came downstairs for some refreshments. She went to Reese first and gave him a quick hug, reaching around all the kids parked on his lap.

"You did a great job up there, Jake. Paula wants me to send you her thanks for stepping in just in the nick of time." Reese mumbled something back, and then Connie crossed over to his brother, and gave him a massive hug.

"Matt, your son is beautiful, and perfect. You and Paula are blessed." Connie went around behind Matt's chair and laid her hands on his shoulders from behind.

"Yes. We are blessed in so many ways," he said, laying one of his hands across Connie's hand, and then looking across to Reese, who had attracted yet another munchkin to him.

"I'm going to bring something up to Paula to eat and drink. She's nursing the baby now, and I think she'll be able to come down later to see everyone after a little nap." She patted Matt on the shoulders and went to the refrigerator for some things to bring upstairs.

"Help yourself, too, Connie. And thank you for swooping in at a moment's notice." She smiled and said she had had a partner at the house who had things well in hand, nodding over toward Katie. Katie looked up from her book, beaming.

"Daddy, may I play the piano?"

"Yes, Jenny. Softly, so Mommy and the baby can sleep, okay?"

Matt told Reese that Jenny was nine, and loved playing piano. She was getting pretty good at it now. She disappeared into the living room and soon there was the sound of piano keys softly plunked.

Matt saw his eldest son, Samuel, sitting alone, and got up to sit with him.

"Guess what?" he said to the boy.

"What?" he said back, with an odd sound in his voice, like hot potatoes in his mouth, a nasal sound.

His arms and hands came up stiffly in front, and Reese could see that his arms were very thin, and his movements weren't smooth.

"Mommy had our new baby upstairs." Samuel threw his head back and a loud screeching sound came out as he laughed out loud. His arms began to flap a little as he was overcome with joy at the news.

"Are they okay?" he asked Matt.

"They're better than okay, son. Mommy did it again. Who's better than Mom?" And Samuel screeched again, with a huge toothy smile. Matt hugged his son, kissing the top of his head.

"And guess what else happened today?"

"What?"

"Uncle Jake is here. He got here just in time to catch your new baby."

"It's a full moon today."

"That's right. It's a full moon." Matt winked a big wink at Samuel, like they were both in on a secret together.

Reese got up, no easy task with a lapful of kids, and went to meet Samuel. He lowered himself down into a kitchen chair next to him and reached out a hand. Samuel reached out with his own hand, which was very thin and bent at an odd angle. They shook, and Samuel arched back laughing again, smiling up to Reese.

"This is Samuel," Matt said, smiling toward his son.

"Nice to meet you, Samuel," Reese said, reaching over the pile of kids in his lap to give him a hug.

"Me, too, Uncle Jake. Good job catching my baby. I hope it's a brother – is it a brother, Uncle Jake?"

"You got your wish – a baby brother." And with that, Samuel raised his arms stiffly, shaking them in victory over his head and screeched another loud laugh.

Reese could see the boy had CP, cerebral palsy. But the ache in his chest for the boy and his family was not so sharp. The kid was game. He leaned over and kissed him on top of his head, just like Matt.

The next hours were filled with phone calls, well-wishers at the front door with all manner of food and drink and offers of help if anything was needed. The whole town knew, and Reese could see the steady procession of neighbors, co-workers, teachers, coaches. As each came in, Matt introduced him, and they invariably said how Reese sounded just like Matt; not that they looked identical, but that they sounded like each other!

They brought the bounty of food into the kitchen and Matt tried to find space for it in the giant refrigerator. It was bursting with casseroles, salads, vegetables of every description, and desserts. Connie had come down from upstairs while Paula and the baby were resting, to help in the kitchen. She seemed at home, and Matt told Reese that she and Paula were childhood friends from the reservation. He explained that Paula and Connie were Lummi, members of a tribe that were First Americans here in the Puget Sound area long before any Europeans had come to settle this land. They had both grown up on the reservation, but then Paula had gotten involved in some of the environmental and political issues of the day, while Connie had gone off to college, and then decided to go into nursing. One thing lead to another, and she ended up training as a midwife, while Paula stayed involved with college work and the environmental projects that were so important to the Lummi.

She and Matt had met at a protest rally, and had married soon after. Katie was born a year later, then Samuel, and Jenny. Then there was a gap in time, while Paula had gone to law school. Connie had delivered all of their kids – when she got there in time. Family joke. Evan and Brian were twins, 5 years old; Annie was 4, and Carol was 2 and a half. After Carol, they thought they were done. The new baby upstairs was a happy surprise.

Reese nodded, trying to take it all in. He gave Matt a quick rundown of his own life: grew up in Colorado, with his grandfather, and sometimes his father, when he was home from deployments. Then Reese had gone into the Army, the Rangers, when he was old enough to join. Later, he took a government job that sent him overseas all over the world. After that, he had settled in Manhattan. Bachelor. No idea that he had a brother.

Matt looked pained at that. He said their mother had taken him as a newborn to Washington state. They had settled in Seattle at first, but eventually had moved to Bellingham and she had re-married. Matt had grown up, served in the Navy as a Corpsman, and then had come home to attend college nearby. After college he had returned to Bellingham, to work in town. Small town life was what he loved. It would take dynamite to get him to leave here now.

"Mom always talked about you, Jake – she called you Jake. She kept track of you when you were really young, but then when our Dad moved you, she couldn't find out where you were. I guess there were hard feelings from the divorce, and when Mom re-married, it just made things worse." Matt reached out to Reese again, smothering him in a bear-hug.

"I'm so glad you're here." Reese was silent, his heart bursting again. He had never felt this way before.

In the evening, after Connie, Matt, Katie and Reese had rounded up all the kids, fed them, bathed them, got them into pajamas, and combed their hair, they were all laying in piles on the living room furniture, the littlest ones snuggled up with Reese, who was reading a bedtime story. He was surprised – he wasn't half-bad at this. He looked around him at the little ones, resting like puppies against him. They were nuzzling with their blankets, or sucking a thumb, all dreamy-eyed as he read their story.

Connie came down from checking Paula and the baby, and she was beaming. Right behind her, they walked out into the living room and Paula caught sight of the little ones clustered around Reese. Her eyes welled up at the sight. Once they knew she was there, everyone jumped up and gathered around her. Katie and Jenny helped Samuel walk to Paula's side. Matt stood up and embraced her, speaking softly to her. She raised her head and smiled, shaking her head yes to something he had said.

Then, she knelt down so the youngest ones could see their new baby brother. They took turns kissing him and saying their Lummi names to him. Then, she said to them "let's tell Uncle Jake our secret, okay?" And the children all turned to him and yelled "yes" together.

Paula said to Reese that when they had first heard from him, they were overjoyed that he had found them. They had waited and prayed for so long that he would come. And, with Paula so close to her due date, they had looked at the calendar right away. The reason they had urged Reese to come today, November 14, was for a special reason and they were all so happy that he had gotten there in time. Connie was smiling and nodding. Babies often are born on the full moon, and today was the full moon. Reese had made it there just in time to catch the baby – it was a good omen.

"Let's go tell Uncle Jake the rest, my loves," Paula said, and the whole clan walked together, Matt lifting the littlest one, Carol, in his arms. They crossed to Reese, who was sitting on a couch where the kids had just been nestled with him. Paula leaned down to him with the swaddled baby, and placed him in Reese's hands. Then she leaned forward and kissed her son first, and then Reese's face.

"Meet our newest son. We all named him Jake, after you."

 **Colorado, November, 2016**

So late in the season, it was cold in the mountains. Snow had already fallen and covered the grass, the rocky outcroppings. Dry snow had filtered down through the trees onto the carpet of thick leaves beneath the canopy, spongy now below his feet. He could see his breath in the air, and the dampness made the cold air denser, heavier in the woods as he walked.

Reese was hiking in from the road where he had pulled his car off onto a side road he remembered from years ago. It was mid-afternoon, overcast, the sky heavily clouded, so that the light shown down uniformly across the sky as a white glow. If he remembered correctly, he should be able to get into the spot he wanted to see and back before dark.

The smell of the trees, pines mostly, and the work of walking through the dense underbrush made him feel calm and quiet inside. His thoughts turned to the new memories from his trip to Bellingham. Everything was piled up in his mind, everything so new and strange. He had barely had time to catch up with the idea that he had a family; living, breathing people who cared about him, liked having him around, wanted to share the loving, messy details of their lives with him and make him a part of it.

It felt good – and yet terrible – at the same time. He could feel a certain uneasiness with it, an impermanence, as though it could just evaporate at any moment. It felt tenuous, and a part of him didn't want him to count on it, lean on it with his full weight. He knew why. If it should suddenly disappear out from under him, now, the feeling would be – Reese didn't let that thought finish. He moved his shoulders up and down, to loosen them, aware that he had gotten tight and stiff there with his thoughts.

He thought instead about the ceremony for his little nephew, Jake, held just before he had left. All the kids were lined up in a circle, with Paula and Matt in the center. Matt had said a prayer out loud in the large room, with the vaulted ceiling and the sun beams flooding through tall windows looking out to the North Cascades beyond. They presented Jake with a rose, the flower tightly closed – to signify the potential inherent in him to flower as a human – and with all its thorns pulled from the stem, to signify the protection and nurturing he needed at this part of his life, by his family.

Reese remembered that there was singing, and then there were heartfelt speeches welcoming Jake to the greater family of the congregation. He had kept his eyes on his brother, saw the emotions in his face, the look in his eyes as he drank in the deep nurturing for him of this simple ceremony.

Reese could see the smiles, the genuine feelings of the well-wishers packed into the seats, standing in the back of the church to see the blessed event. And then Reese remembered his surprise as they were filing out later on, learning that Matt was their Pastor. His brother was a man of the church, ministering to the needs of his beloved town at the foot of the mountains. He remembered the words carved above the door – "Peace to All Who Enter Here." And nearby, he could see the dedication stone and acknowledgment, on church grounds, to the Lummi, who had settled this land long before white people had ever come.

Back home that last evening, he remembered how the little ones had crowded around him like puppies, leaned against him, comforted by the low vibration of his chest as he read their favorite bedtime stories. He remembered helping Matt carry them, sleeping, up to their bedrooms and tuck them into their beds. He remembered the smell, even now, of their freshly-washed heads resting on his shoulders. And he recalled the quiet time he spent with the three older kids: Katie, Samuel and Jenny. That last evening Katie had pulled out a favorite book and read it to them, nestled together on the couch. It was a book about the Lummi, about a grandmother patiently teaching a young girl, Tani, the ancient wisdom of her People. The older kids, too, had piled in on him and rested against him as they listened to her soft, strong voice tell the story.

Later still, he had sat with Jake on his chest, swaddled in a soft striped blanket, asleep after nursing late in the night. Matt and Paula were there, speaking softly with him as they lingered in the quiet light of the living room. They stayed up late that last night, none of them wanting it to end. But it had. Hard to drive off, hard to leave them, all gathered around his car after a late breakfast of pancakes and bacon the kids made for him. They had decorated the pancakes with big smiley faces made from blueberries, and poured cup after cup of strong coffee for him. He was full – filled up with food and drink and something else he could not even name. Love? Was this what that was?

* * *

 **Chapter 39: Everything I Know; Long Gone; That Went Well; Favorite White Tea  
**

* * *

 **Bethesda, Maryland, September, 2014**

Reese and Fusco were carrying in large, hinged boxes from the back of their SUV. Fusco had driven them down from Manhattan to the team in Washington by car. There was no other easy way to get so many weapons there, undetected.

Shaw and Root were seated at a narrow table with Harper, cleaning weapons, refilling clips, sorting through the smaller boxes of handguns, while Reese and Fusco sorted through the long guns. They all looked up as Harold entered.

He barely flinched at the sight of all the guns. Not like Harold at all. They could see the look in his eyes – like after Carter, Reese thought. On the street corner, when he and Carter were hit, Reese could remember seeing the same look in Harold's eyes. Much later, Harold had told him that at that moment he knew that the cost of what they were doing had gone far too high. Losing Carter, and nearly losing Reese, too, had made Harold want to stop. He didn't think he could start again after that.

Reese put down his weapon and went over to Harold, telling him to follow him next door. Harold seemed dazed, barely aware of Reese or the others. Reese grabbed his sleeve, and turned him toward the door, pulling him alongside.

"Finch, what's going on?" Reese said in his whisper-voice. His face was pained, seeing his friend like this. Once had been more than enough.

"Mr. Reese – John – I'm quite at a loss to know what to do at this moment – ." Harold was staring into space, making no sense. Reese could see that he was struggling with what to do about Grace.

"You have to tell her, Finch. She has to know you're alive. How can she make sense of everything that's happened? Kidnapped from Italy. Greer questioning her every day."

"It's not safe," Harold said, swinging his eyes up to Reese.

"No – it wasn't," Reese shot back, softly. Harold looked crushed, responsible for her misery.

"You have to make it right, Harold." Reese took a few steps away, looking into the darkened room where Grace was lying on the table. He could hear her stirring, and he looked back to Harold.

"Finch," he said. "You're up." Reese nodded to the open door of Grace's room. Harold straightened himself, pulled his shoulders back, and limped past Reese to the doorway. He stopped for a moment, gathering himself, and then entered.

Reese backed away, turning back to the room at the end, where the others were picking through the weapons. When he went back in, Fusco looked up.

"Don't you think someone should get something for Grace to wear that isn't soaked with blood?"

"Good thought, Lionel, are you offering?" Reese said.

"Maybe someone with some fashion sense," Harper said, and the three women chuckled. Lionel smirked, bobbing his head up and down, looking around the room for a better candidate. Shaw and Root were busy cleaning weapons and loading ammo, and there was no way he would try to talk Reese into going.

"Looks like it's me and you, GQ" Fusco said to Harper. She laughed out loud with the rest of them.

"Okay, I'll ride shotgun with you." She stood up and slipped her gun into the holster at her waist in back, under her jacket. She thought about grabbing another one, maybe a long gun, but Fusco shook his head no, and the two went out together toward the back exit. Shaw called after them.

"How about bringing back something to eat?" She heard Fusco mutter something, and Harper looked back over her shoulder toward Shaw, mouthing "ooh," then covering her ears. Shaw smiled a small smile. Got him.

In the room down the hall, Harold was watching Grace on the table. She was starting to move around, and Harold didn't want her to roll off onto the floor. But he didn't want to suddenly appear and scare her out of her wits, either. What to do?

"Grace?" he said, softly. She didn't answer. He heard her saying something to herself, under her breath. He couldn't tell what it was. Then she was turning onto her side, and pushing herself up, but she was struggling, off balance from the drugs. He rushed to her side, and she fell against him. She looked up, dazed, into his face.

"No. Not you, again," she said, staring at Harold. "Don't you understand? I've told you everything I know. Leave me alone." She looked down, away from his eyes. "Leave me alone."

Grace leaned away from him, back down onto her side on the folded blanket. Harold took off his jacket and wrapped it over her shoulders. The air was cool inside the building as evening was approaching.

He sat down on the chair at her side, his forehead lowered to his palm, elbow resting on his knee. What had they done to her? What had they done?

 **Colorado, November, 2016**

Up ahead was a clearing, a drop-off at the edge of the woods. As he got closer, he could hear water moving, and he recalled the sounds of the stream bending around both sides of the huge boulder sticking up from the stream bed. It was where the stream split, flowing around the rock and then joining again, further down below the deep pool where his favorite flat rock was half-submerged. The water was crystal clear today, and it looked cold. The light was still milky white, and the air was so still, now that he had stopped walking.

He looked around. Everything looked a little smaller than he remembered. Then he smiled to himself. He had been smaller then, too; twelve, when everything had happened here. He looked across the stream toward the bank, where the doe had come down to the water with her two fawns to drink. There was snow on the bank, covering their tracks if the deer had come down here recently. He looked up the bank to the edge of the trees from where she had always appeared. He waited, his breath showing in the cold, damp air. Nothing was up there at the edge.

His thoughts turned to that night at Jules' house. It seemed like so long ago, but it was just over two weeks. She had met him at the front door, and when he went into her house, he had been blind-sided with a feeling that had stopped him in his tracks. She had read him, taken him back to her table, and then had played this music that had somehow brought him here to this place from his past. It was so real. The doe, and her fawns. The doe had spoken to him, and he finally understood what she had tried to tell him long ago. He had learned her secret that night – that he had a brother and that he must go and find him.

His pulse quickened and there was a feeling rising in his chest as he remembered Harold giving him the news. It started to tumble out in his mind, the phone call, those first hesitant words as he said his name, and then told Matt he was the brother Matt was searching for. Matt had a family, but Reese wasn't prepared for what that meant. They had welcomed him into their lives, so trusting, so eager to touch him in so many ways.

He remembered how the little ones had been drawn to him, laying against him, accepting him. And the older ones, too, leaned into him, pressed against him, filling up with him while he was there. And Jake, his special gift. He remembered holding his blanketed body against his chest, listening to his soft breath, smelling that smell of milk, and baby skin, and soap. What was going on here? How was this all happening to him?

Silence. No answers came to him from the trees at the top of the bank. He was thinking about the doe, about her eyes, how unafraid she was when he waded through the stream to the bank. She had waited for him, and then she moved forward toward him, waiting for him to reach out to her. Then she had come up next to him and touched him, face-to-face. It gave him chills just now. He could remember the feel of her face on his skin, and the smell of her, like fresh-cut hay. How could that be? How could she have found a field of fresh hay in these woods in the mountains? He couldn't think of a way.

Then, at the top of the bank, he caught sight of something moving slowly, at the edge of the woods. He could hear the footsteps in the spongy soil beneath the trees. The sound echoed in the dense air up there, among the trees, then down to him on the far side of the stream. He strained to see what it was. And then she was there.

He saw her face, and her dark eyes in the shadows at the edge of the woods. She saw him, too. She walked out to the bank, standing high above him, but she did not make a move to come down to the water. Reese looked for the fawns. But she was alone this time. She regarded him with her soft eyes, and a tightness began to form at the base of his throat – he needed to say something to her.

"I found him. I found my brother," he said to her, and she did not startle. She stood there, regarding him, and then lowered her head to him, acknowledging him.

"Where are your sons?" Reese called to her. She turned her head to one side, and then he saw her look at him with that look like he should know what she was saying.

" _Long gone from me, now. Long gone_ ," she said. She watched his reaction with her soft eyes. She began to back into the trees, disappearing from his view, and he called after her.

"Can't you stay?"

" _Goodbye, my son_ ," and then she was gone.

 **Bethesda, Maryland, September, 2014 – rated T for some violence, threats of violence, mild language  
**

"I understand what you're trying to do. I just think it's too risky," Shaw was saying. Reese was silent, nodding, and then he looked to Root. She seemed to feel differently; Reese could see it in her face, and in the way she held herself. She looked up and realized that Reese had been watching her, knew she didn't agree.

"What do _you_ think?" Reese asked her.

"Yeah, it's risky. But I think we should do it. If it works, we'll have someone inside that we can control."

"Does he know how to handle a gun?" Shaw asked them. Reese and Root shrugged.

"Like I said. This is too risky. What if he screws up?" She was shaking her head. There were only six of them on the team who could do the breach if they went after Greer at the Virginia ranch. Pretty slim margins already. If this plan failed, if someone got hurt and was out of commission, it could jeopardize the whole operation. On the other hand, if it worked, maybe they wouldn't have to go in with guns blazing at all. She knew Reese's eyes were on her, and she knew he could tell she was softening. Damn.

"Alright. Let's go over the plan one more time. And then, we have to get Joey out of the room so he can get up to speed, too. And we should tell Harold, so he doesn't try to be a hero and get himself killed." Reese was taking in all of her suggestions, pretending he hadn't thought of any of them himself. When Shaw saw him start to smile, she punched him in the shoulder, and Root and Reese started laughing. Got her.

Down the hallway, Joey was sitting in the room, keeping an eye on the prisoners. Boring. But necessary. There was a knock at the door, and Root opened it and strolled in.

"Food is on the way. How about a little break for you," she said to Joey, glancing around the room at the prisoners. He nodded, and stretched himself, standing up.

"Reese wants to interview each of the prisoners one more time. He wants Leon first. Mind taking him down the hall to Reese?"

"Sure," he said. He went over to Leon and unlocked the cuffs, pulling him up to his feet. As he walked Leon across the floor to the door, Root reached out with her foot and swept his legs out from under him. He landed hard on the floor, hands cuffed behind him so he couldn't use them to protect his face. When he rolled over, they could see a long scrape on his cheek, and it was already starting to swell.

"And when Reese is done with him, I get him next. We have a little score to settle," Root said. Leon tipped his head back, grimacing, and Joey pulled him up to his feet.

"Leave a little for me, too, Sam," Joey said, and man-handled Leon toward the door. After he left, Root walked back and forth in front of the other two prisoners, holding a hunting knife in her hands. "I've always liked knives," she said out loud, twirling the blade in her hands in front of them. She could see their eyes watching her handle the knife. The two men said nothing, but she could see them squirming around in their seats.

"We're just looking for a little information. You can make it easy on yourselves if you cooperate with us. It's all up to you, boys," she said. She walked over to the seat where Joey had been sitting and sat down, placing the knife in front of her on a chair, in plain view. She settled back, with her eyes on the prisoners.

Shaw and Reese were talking with Joey in the hallway outside the room, before they went in to talk with Leon. Reese was questioning him about the interaction between Leon and the other two prisoners. He asked Joey if it looked like the two men knew him. Had they spoken with him or made any eye contact that would show they had worked with him before the ambush in the hotel? Joey thought for a minute, then shook his head, no.

"Well, Leon, it looks like you could use my help again. In trouble again. I'm not surprised, Leon," Reese said in a voice so quiet Leon had to lean forward to hear him. He hated it when Reese did that. There was something terrifying about him when he did that. Like a coiled cobra, or a caged lion with his eyes on you, just waiting for the opportunity. He felt himself start to shake.

"You have this all wrong, Reese."

"Oh, it looks pretty clear from where I sit, Leon. You make a cozy deal with Greer, telling him everything you know about us. Telling him where he can find us at the hotel – ."

"It wasn't like that, Reese. I changed. I was straight. I wanted it to work out this time."

"Come on, Leon," Reese said, a little louder, shaking his head. "You expect me to believe you?"

"I'm telling you, Reese, it wasn't like that. I got intel on Greer and gave it to Sam right away. We were working it up to find out where Greer could be, and that's how we knew about the ranch in Virginia. But that night, when we were supposed to meet at the hotel, his men grabbed me, beat me up until I told them where you were. I didn't have a choice, Reese. They were going to kill me."

"I see. That always seems to happen to you, Leon. There is always someone trying to kill you." Leon was silent, eyes down, certain there would be no way out of this.

"I just wanted it to work out, this time," he said, finally, looking up into Reese's eyes. Reese looked over to Shaw, who had been standing, leaning back against the wall near the door. Her eyes slid to Reese and he saw her nod, almost imperceptibly, to him. Then he turned back to Leon and sat back, starting to tell him the plan that would save his life, again.

"Are you clear about what you need to do, Leon?" Reese asked.

"Yes, I'm clear."

"Three shots. The first one into the floor, to get the keys for the cuffs. The second one toward me, like a threat. You have to make it look real to them. They're not messing around. If it doesn't look real, they're going to know it, and they'll probably kill you on the spot, Leon." Reese was studying Leon's face – trying to judge if he had the stones to do this. Leon was avoiding his eyes at first, but then took a deep breath and looked up to him. There was something steely in his eyes that wasn't there before.

"The third shot goes to me. Right here," Reese said, pointing to his chest. "I'm going to be close, coming for you, so you won't miss. I go down, and then you leave with the other two. Got it?"

"I've got it," Leon said.

"Then what happens?" Reese asked him, his voice pressuring Leon like a drill sergeant.

"We escape on foot, steal a car, go back to the ranch or wherever Greer is now. I plant the device whenever I get the chance to do it. And I stay undercover with them until we take them down."

"We're going to know if you try to sell us out again, Leon," Shaw said, walking toward him from the door. He leaned back, cringing in his seat. Reese stood up and blocked Shaw from her path.

"Okay, we have to make it look like we interrogated you, Leon." He looked up at Reese and then closed his eyes. He nodded, and then took a deep breath.

"You do it. I don't trust her," he said, looking around Reese, at Shaw. Reese turned around to her and told her to go back to the room for one of the other prisoners, and give the signal to the others that everything was ready. When she heard him throw Leon against the door, that's when she should start to walk down the hall with the other prisoner. He knew he didn't have to say it to her. No matter what, Joey was to stay with Harold and Grace. If anything went wrong, he was to protect them. Reese watched her leave, and turned around to Leon.

Shaw walked down the hallway, past the room where Grace and Harold had been, empty now. They were safely hidden in another room on the far side of the building, with Joey and all of the boxes of weapons nearby. It was just Root, and Reese, and her.

Fusco was out with Harper, and would pick up Logan on their way back. He had been hanging out at a coffee shop all day, re-charging batteries for their laptops, and monitoring the buildings they had in their sights. If anything changed, Logan would know, and they could modify their plans on the fly. She hoped Fusco would bring back something good to eat, and lots of it. She was starving.

She could hear the commotion starting in the room at the end of the hall behind her, and she smiled a half-smile. Too bad. She would have enjoyed being in there, instead of Reese. He always had all the fun. On second thought, maybe not, she said to herself, thinking of what was to come. She knocked on the door, and peeped in at Root, who smiled a stunning smile at her. She always looked her best when something bad was about to go down, Shaw thought. Adrenaline was good.

"Reese is just finishing up with the other loser down there. He's ready for the next one," Shaw said, walking into the room, and across the floor toward the two prisoners. She was sizing them up, picking the one most likely to fall into the trap. She unlocked the cuffs and got him up to his feet, then cuffed his hands behind his back, and walked him to the front. Root was standing there at the door, blocking her path. She leaned in close to her, and nuzzled against her cheek.

"You know, Sameen, when this is all over, I think we need to take a little time for ourselves. Don't you?" Shaw played along, buying more time until she heard the signal down the hall.

"You say the nicest things when I have a gun in my hand, Lover," Shaw said. Then, the crash, and the sound of glass breaking. Oops. Maybe a little too forceful, Reese, she thought. We can't knock the guy out.

Reese pulled Leon away from the wall next to the door. He pulled his gun back from shattering the glass, and then laid it on the table behind him, out of sight, out of reach. He wanted only one gun, Shaw's gun, to be in play.

Then he grabbed Leon by the arm and pushed him out into the hall, stepping through the broken glass, pushing him forward once, hard, so the other prisoner could see him do it. Leon stumbled, and almost went down, but caught himself. Reese was on his right, just behind his right shoulder. Shaw was coming down the hall with the other prisoner. She was on his left, with her gun out, walking even with him. Leon just had to wait until they were close, and then he would lunge, knocking her into the big guy. She would bounce off him and get thrown to the floor. Reese had taken his cuffs off in the room, and then put them on with his hands in front this time, so he could pick up the gun when Shaw dropped it. They were almost even. Another step.

Reese felt Leon start to tense, and he added a little push of his own, to launch Leon harder into Shaw. She was caught in the middle, shoved by Leon into the prisoner next to her. The strike was perfect, right into her body, pushing her right arm, holding the gun, against the prisoner and then bouncing toward Leon and Reese, where she let it go at Leon's feet. She flew backwards, sprawling, and hit the wall, then down to the floor, dazed for real.

Reese and Leon were scrambling for the gun, as the prisoner was hitting the wall, and dropping to one knee. Leon came up with the gun, and backed away from Reese, who started to go after Leon, but thought better of it, and held his ground. He was watching Leon's hands, and his eyes.

"Get over there," Leon said, motioning to Reese. Reese raised his hands in the air.

"Easy, Leon. We don't want anyone to get hurt."

"The keys, Reese. The keys to the cuffs – where are they?" Reese was silent. Leon looked back and forth between Reese and Shaw, who was just getting up from the floor. He motioned to the prisoner to come over behind him, away from Reese and Shaw's reach.

"The keys, now, or I start shooting." Root stuck her head out from the room with the other prisoner, and they heard him call out from the room.  
"She's got a knife!" Leon backed up further, and motioned to Root to come out.

"Drop the knife – over there," he motioned toward the exit door. Root stepped out, and held up the hunting knife in front of Leon. She bent down and slid it across the floor past the door, into the opening for another corridor. She looked up at Leon with a half-smile, and shrugged.

"The keys. Last time." When no one moved, he aimed and shot at the floor. Reese started to come toward him, but he said "no, her. I want her to bring them." Leon motioned to Root. She smiled, and walked forward toward him, dangling a key in front of him from her jacket. When she got close, he held out his hand and told her to drop the key in his palm. She held it up for a little while longer, taunting him, jiggling it in her fingers, then dropping it down into his palm.

Once he had it, he swung his gun to his left and then back to the right, smacking it across Root's face. She flew backwards onto the floor and he aimed his gun at her chest.

"Just give me a reason," he said to her. Blood was dripping down from the gash on her brow.

"Now the keys to the car," Leon said to Reese, as he unlocked his cuffs.

"It's not here, Leon," Reese said back, in his whisper voice. Leon used the key to open one side of the cuffs for the prisoner behind him, and told him to go get the other man free, too. While the prisoner was in the other room, Leon went to the exit door and looked outside. No car.

The two prisoners came out of the room together and stood next to Leon at the exit door. He turned to them, told them there was no car for them to use. They would all have to leave on foot and get one on the way.

"See? I was telling you the truth, Leon. No car." Reese's voice was so soft, Leon could hardly hear it. Menacing. Leon could feel himself starting to shake again. He raised his gun toward Reese.

"A little advice, Leon. Keep looking over your shoulder. I'm coming for you." The gun went off in Leon's hands, and Reese spun around, onto the floor, face-down. Leon walked forward and stood over the top of him, aiming down at Reese's head. From the corner of his eye, he saw movement, and Shaw had leaped at him, knocking the gun away. She swung at him and connected, just a split-second after he had winked at her. Are you kidding? Was he still working the plan?

It just had time to register before one of the big guys punched her in the head. She sprawled down next to Reese on the floor.

"Let's get going. Leave them," Leon said, and the two men went out ahead, with Leon right behind.

They laid there for a long time on the floor before they felt safe enough to move. Reese turned over onto his back, moaning in pain. Root was crawling over to Shaw, who was starting to stir. Root sat down on the floor, and turned Shaw over, lifting her up to lean back against her chest. As Shaw started to open her eyes, she looked around at the two others. Reese was shot, in his vest, which still hurts like hell and probably broke another rib. Root was pistol-whipped in the head, and was dripping blood all over her. And she was knocked out cold by the Hulk.

"That went well," Shaw said.

 **Virginia, September, 2014**

"Ah, the prodigal son returns," he said, as Leon walked into the living room. Leon was toweling off, after showering and changing into clean clothes. One of the butlers had come with an ice-pack for his face, and he sat down on an upholstered chair, leaning back to rest. Everything hurt. But it was worth it.

"Care for some tea?" Greer said, and at his nod, poured the pale, golden tea into a delicate bone china teacup.

"Your favorite white tea." Greer nodded to Leon, smiling with his face.


	9. Part 8: It Matters To Me How This Ends

**Part 8: It Matters To Me How This Ends - rated K+ for mild language and descriptions of injuries  
**

* * *

 **Chapter 40.1: Go/No Go**

* * *

 **Bethesda, Maryland, September, 2014**

They heard a car driving around the back of the building and car doors opening and closing. Three doors, they counted. Reese rolled over on the floor to get the gun. One bullet left in the clip. If it was Leon coming back with his men for them, things could get a little dicey. Reese lifted the gun up toward the door.

Fusco walked in and drew back at the sight of the gun pointed their way, and the three on the floor.

"What the hell?" he said, with his hands spread out at his sides. Reese lowered the gun, and put his hand over the spot where Leon's bullet had hit his vest. He could feel the metal casing embedded below the surface, but it hurt too much to press any harder. He could tell his rib was broken under the bullet. He just needed to stabilize his ribs a little while he started to turn over and get himself up. Fusco walked forward to help him stand, while Harper and Logan saw to Root and Shaw.

"So, is someone going to tell us what happened?" Fusco said to the three of them.

"What kind of food did you bring?" Shaw asked, seeing white bags in their hands. Fusco just shook his head. Okay, food before answers.

A little while later there was a table pulled into the hallway, covered with open containers of steaming Italian food: pasta, meatballs, fish, broccoli sauteed in garlic, loaves of crispy bread, salad, desserts. And there was a large cardboard carton of piping hot coffee, and another one of hot water for tea. Heaven. Plenty of food for everyone. Courtesy of Logan.

Shaw was first in line, loading her plate, and then sitting on a chair pulled from the room where the prisoners had been. Root sat down next to her. She had a napkin over the cut above her eye, and Shaw could see that she was already getting a shiner on that side. Shaw had one too, from the punch in the head the prisoner had gotten off before the three men had left.

She was still confused about Leon. She thought he was going to shoot Reese again when Reese was down on the floor. But just as she had leaped at him, to save Reese, she saw Leon wink like he was telling her it was all part of the act.

Well, it had fooled her. She thought he was really going to do it, made sure he killed Reese with a head shot. So maybe the prisoners would think the same thing. Maybe this plan could actually work. Time would tell. Damn, her head hurt.

Reese had gone to check on Joey, Harold and Grace in the back of the building. He nodded and bumped fists with Joey for keeping the two of them safe back there, and told him to go get some food while it was still hot.

Harold was still at Grace's side. She was sitting up in a chair, but her eyes were closed. The lights were off in the room, and she was still groggy from the drugs Greer's people had given her. Reese sat down next to Harold.

"Fusco brought some food in for everyone. You should eat something." Harold looked pale and worried.

"I trust that your plan went well with Leon?"

"Well enough," Reese said, holding his ribs. Harold nodded, absently.

"Greer tortured her, John." Reese looked over to her, sitting on the chair, then back to Harold, leaning forward, staring.

"Sorry, Harold," Reese said in a soft voice, reaching over to put his arm around Finch's shoulders. Finch's face was hidden in shadow, but from the light of a bulb in the hallway, Reese could see the glint of tears on his face.

"When she woke up and saw my face, she thought I was the enemy. They've turned her. She thinks I'm one of them," he said. "I don't know which is worse – Grace believing I was dead, or believing I am the enemy."

"We can get her back, Finch," Reese said. Harold was silent.

There were footsteps in the hallway. Fusco and Harper were there at the door with a plate of food, some hot tea and some bags of new clothing. Harper stepped into the room and over to the two of them, whispering so Grace couldn't overhear her.

"We'll take care of Grace. Joey told us some of the details. You guys go have some food, and leave this to us." Harper shooed them out of the room. She sat down next to Grace, and put her arm around her shoulders, talking softly to her.

"Ms. Hendricks, I'm Harper Rose, and this is Detective Lionel Fusco from the NYPD. We're here to help you. You've been through a terrible ordeal, but we're here to help you, now. Okay?"

As Reese walked Harold back to the exit hallway where the food was set up, Harold could see that Reese was in pain, but trying not to show it. When they got to the exit hallway, Harold looked around at the rest of his team. Shaw was leaning over Root, tending to a bloody wound near her eye. Shaw's face was bruised, too. Harold turned to Reese.

"I think we should leave here as quickly as possible and go back to New York, to one of the safe houses. I think we need to lie low for a little while. We need to make a new plan before we strike Greer's operation. I don't think we're in any shape to do it right now. Look at us," he said. Reese looked at his team and nodded. He had to agree. They weren't at their best.

They could leave tonight, Reese thought, drive back to Manhattan and get themselves reset in the coming days. He needed to contact Leon again soon, anyway, keep the pressure on, get a status on Greer's whereabouts and plans.

There was plenty to do before they took on Greer, and the more they learned, the better prepared they would be. Having Leon planted inside Greer's organization could be the key to getting all the intel they needed before they pulled the trigger. Taking down Samaritan and Greer, with Samaritan watching every second for hostile action, would take every bit of the team's attention and talent. Best not to rush.

"Harold, what about Grace?"

"Detective Fusco and Harper gave me an idea. What if they convince her that she was a victim of some international crime. They could bring her back to New York, where she can get proper care. I'll have them take her to a hotel here in Bethesda for the night. She can get comfortable, get a good night's sleep, and I'll send a car to pick them up in the morning. Grace won't have to see me again tonight and get upset," Harold said. Reese could see the pain in Harold's eyes.

"It's a good plan, Harold. You're right. We're banged up a little bit and we need to regroup." Then he added one more thought.

"Don't worry. Grace is strong. She's going to come through this, Harold." Reese put his arm around Harold's shoulders again, and they walked together to the table for some food.

* * *

 **Chapter 40.2: Leaving D.C.**

* * *

 **Bethesda, Maryland, September, 2014**

Fusco was on his way back to the hide-out with the SUV. A lot of driving today. He had driven Harper and Grace to a hotel and got the two of them into a room where Harper could take care of Grace. Now he was on the way back.

The team was packing out their gear, so as soon as he got to the building, they would finish loading everything. Reese and the rest of the team would get him back to the hotel to keep watch over Grace and Harper through the night. Logan and Joey would jump out, too, and leave from the hotel. They were going to stay here in D.C. and would keep the home fires burning in the new office downtown.

Reese, Shaw, Harold and Root would take the SUV, with the boxes of weapons, back to New York tonight. And in the morning, he and the two women would get a ride back to New York by limo. It seems that Glasses had a limo driver he trusted who could pick them up and get them back to New York safely – and in style, too, Fusco thought. Long time since he had been in a limo – since his wedding day years ago.

Harper was turning down the covers on the two beds in their hotel room. She could hear Grace in the shower. Grace deserved a nice long hot shower after everything she had been through. She was still fuzzy-headed from the drugs Greer's people had given her before they tried to move her to the ranch in Virginia. Maybe the shower would help her get her thoughts together a little better.

There was a refrigerator in the room, and Harper took a peek inside. Great. Some little bottles of wine. She looked through them to see what was there, and picked a red for herself. There were some real glass tumblers on the counter outside the bathroom. She hated drinking wine from a plastic cup. Glass was so much better. She left the wine out to warm up a bit before she opened it. Lucky that she had thought to bring the loaves of bread left over from their feast earlier. She had re-wrapped a few into a bag to bring along. So now they could have some bread with their wine. And there was some dessert, too, for later, if Grace was up to it. It was almost like a girls' night-in. Maybe she could get Grace to dish about what had happened with Greer the last two months. Harper looked around the room. Only one little box of tissues. Probably not enough for this story.

* * *

 **Chapter 40.3: Back in New York**

* * *

 **Manhattan, September, 2014**

It was 5 a.m. when they had finally made it to the safe house. They had gone to the warehouse first and unloaded the boxes of weapons. They didn't want to be driving around with them in the back of their car out on the streets of New York. The safe house had its own supply anyway, so they didn't need to break open the boxes of freshly-cleaned guns, and re-stocked ammo. Those were now all reset, ready to be used for their next assault, should that happen any time soon.

Root had headed for the shower first, while Shaw went to a bedroom where they each kept a suitcase with clothing and supplies. She unpacked some fresh clothes to change into after her shower. It had been a long few days in the hide-out without the amenities.

Her head was pounding and she was curious how bad the black eye had gotten. It was lucky that the blow had been a glancing punch. If he had hit her square in the head, she might not be standing up right now. It was plenty hard enough, though.

She looked through her bag to see if there was anything for pain in there. Not much. She needed to pack a little better. Working for this team, she needed to be ready for just about anything. She smiled. That's the way she liked it. Be ready for anything, and it would likely come your way. Good times.

Reese was sitting with a drink, whiskey, on the couch in the dawn light. Harold had stayed awake with him while they were driving back from Bethesda. So he was tired and had gone off to bed when they got to the safe house. The women were taking care of themselves, so he was alone in the quiet morning, nursing his drink and some bad ribs.

It had been a crazy few days, nothing like what they had planned. Reese sat back and started to go through the timeline in his mind. Harold had been away for the weekend, and that's when the news broke that Grace was a prisoner, held by Greer for two months. When the team had breached the building back then, where Harold had been held captive, they hadn't known that Grace was a prisoner then, too. They had sprung Harold, but Grace had been left behind in Greer's hands. Plenty of time to play mind-games with her and turn her against the man she had once almost married. Harold was so traumatized from his torture that he didn't even remember Grace had been captured in Italy. Greer had made him watch it on a monitor as it unfolded, when Harold was his prisoner. It had all started to come back to him when Shaw called to tell him about Grace.

Harold was a mess. Tortured with rounds of sensory deprivation, drugs, and emotional manipulation. His memory gone until now. Grace kidnapped and tortured by the same man, and turned against him. He had already been living with her loss, letting her believe he had died in the ferry boat bombing, so he could try to protect her. Harold believed that Grace would be safe if he was out of her life. But it had not worked out that way. Reese didn't think Harold could take much more. He was cracking. Reese had to do something to help his friend stay intact. He was thinking of the possibilities. But he was running on fumes now himself. He needed some sleep.

He leaned back and took another sip, holding himself so the broken rib moved as little as possible with each breath.

* * *

 **Chapter 40.4: New-York-Concerned**

* * *

 **En-route to Manhattan, September, 2014**

"I'm sorry, I'm not following this. Could you tell me again?" Grace said. Harper looked back and nodded, patting Grace on her arm, with a look of concern. Not too much. She couldn't overplay it. She had to show she was concerned, but New-York-concerned. If you hit the dirt, you were expected to pick yourself up. A little help was fine, but no whining. It's New York.

"Yes, Ms. Hendricks. We have reason to believe that you were a victim of a crime that crossed international borders. The crime started here in New York, but involved perpetrators in several other countries in Europe, including Italy, where you were abducted. Can you recall any of the details of how you were kidnapped?" Grace's eyes widened. She had been kidnapped? This wasn't making any sense. She was an art teacher. Why would anyone want to kidnap her?

"I don't understand. I don't have anything anyone would want. I just teach art – to refugees from the war in the Middle East. I don't have anything anyone would want..." Grace was shaking her head, confused, shocked that something like this could happen to someone like her.

"I just want to get back to my students. I'm sure they must be heart-broken and scared that I just disappeared. They depend on me to be there. I can't just abandon them like this. I have to go back." Harper's voice choked for a second, and she felt hot in her face. Grace was something. She looked so meek and mild, but under that soft exterior, Harper thought, there must be one tough woman. She had been through so much. But she hadn't given up. She had kept her humanity. She had carried herself with – ah, yes, Grace.

The black town car drove swiftly along the highway, the trees on both hills just now turning gold, red and rust. Mid-town traffic would soon slow them down, but with Winston driving, it wasn't so bad. He had kept the mood light, sensing how fragile Grace was. He had talked sports with Fusco in the front seat, but Fusco's idea of football was not the same as Winston's.

There was an extra sparkle in Winston's eye. Something extraordinary had happened today. This morning he was an employee of his livery service in Manhattan, a job he loved. But a phone call had come to him from a man he remembered well. An odd fellow to be sure. This man remembered him, too, and said he was so impressed with his care and attention to his fares, that he had bought the livery company, just that morning, and he wanted Winston to run it and work on retainer for him, too. Winston was the boss, starting now. He thought he had been struck by lightning, but it had turned out to be true.

So here he was, on his maiden voyage as the new boss of his own company, with a very special group of fares in his car. He had driven all the way to Bethesda this morning to get them, and bring them back home, to New York.

* * *

 **Chapter 40.5: Italy**

* * *

 **Upstate New York, December, 2016**

Mid-December, and Jules had just gotten a message from her office in Paris. This was a little different. They were asking if she would be interested in helping to set up a refugee crisis center. It was a 6-month assignment, but if she wanted to stay longer to train new staff, that would be welcome. The refugees she would be helping were ones coming in from Sudan, mostly South Sudan. She had specific language skills, and familiarity with their customs, their history. She could help the humanitarian group hit the road running, instead of slogging through the inevitable painful learning curve with people who cared but knew nothing about their patients. If she could be ready to come January 1st, the staff would be ecstatic. It sounded intriguing, and she had accepted right away.

The timing was perfect. Reese was on his way today, and she could let him know she was shipping out in a few weeks. She was looking forward to hearing all about his trip to Bellingham to meet his brother and his family out there. It was amazing to see the change in Reese in the short time she had known him. The man who was so closed down, hyper-vigilant, even scary to some people, had found it within himself to live. He was opening up, bit by bit, and letting in the people who would be there for him, who would keep him grounded, keep him aimed in the right direction. He had found them at just the right time. They had been there all the time of course, but he didn't see them, really see them, until he was ready to be open again, to be vulnerable. It was a beautiful thing.

When he got there, they sat for hours over coffee, and dinner, and cognac. She watched his face as he told her about getting there at Matt's house, the little girl Annie at the front door, catching Jake, the full moon, meeting Samuel, reading bedtime stories to the little ones, and listening to the Lummi tale that Katie had read. He told her about Matt and Paula, about the welcoming ceremony for Jake at the church in Bellingham, about the rose, and about the stone outside the church, dedicated to the First Americans.

Then he told her about returning to Colorado. He had gone back to the stream where he had first seen the doe with her twin fawns. After the Lummi story, the fact that a doe had spoken to him seemed just normal. How could it be any other way? We find what we need along the way, if we just open ourselves to the possibilities.

They slept in front of the fire all night long on the L-shaped couch, for old time's sake, and in the morning, the sun was bright and warm on the deck. Jules got up and found Reese sitting on the lounge chair, with Buddha in his lap, the two of them sunning themselves in the morning light.

On his way back to Manhattan, Reese was thinking about how everything was falling into place. It was just past two years now that they had all come back from Bethesda, banged up, bruised, but not beaten. They had re-grouped, recovered. It was true that they had had a few bad days and nights along the way since then. But they had survived, and maybe even did a little better than that.

Team Machine had grown, and now had lights blinking in six major cities. Samaritan was less of a threat every day, thanks to the genius of Arthur Claypool, and Harold's geek squad of Root, Logan and their minions. Greer was still out there, too. But that is a story for another day.

Harold was too busy to notice the hole in his heart. Grace had returned to Italy, and she still had no idea that Harold was alive. Fusco and Shaw seemed content. Bear was eating them out of house and home.

So, why was he feeling like the tower, so carefully rebuilt with strong wooden pieces, was about to shake a little bit, as one of the pieces was removed from the structure. Just one small piece. How could it matter?

When he was leaving her house to go back to Manhattan, Jules had told him about her new assignment. She had told him that it would be something different for her, and she was looking forward to going. Her usual team would not be there. It would just be her and a new group of staff who would take over the site after she trained them. She would have time to sight see, to get to know the beautiful city where she would be stationed for six months, maybe more. And she could practice another language she loved: Italian.

She was headed to Rome. Where Grace was. It was a big place. Lots of people. What could go wrong?

...

* * *

 **The End. Thank you for reading Saving the Saviors.**

* * *

...


	10. Epilogue

****Epilogue****

 **In the coming weeks I will be starting the next part of this story, in a new volume called G. It begins with the arrival of Jules, in her new mission overseas. She is setting up a crisis center in the West part of Rome, where refugees from Africa and the Middle East have flooded the city, waiting for the chance to move on to new homes in Europe, Scandinavia, the U.S. and Canada.**

 **Harold, Root and Logan Pierce are the nucleus of a geek squad maintaining the Machine's presence in certain cities across the U.S. But a showdown is imminent. Forces that would destroy Harold's work, his Team, everything dear to him, are assembling.**

 **Grace is weary. The constant ebb and flow of children from the Towers nearby, with their heart-breaking stories, their scars, has left her with Compassion Fatigue.**

 **And yet, there is some evidence for hope. Someone has been reaching out to her, with little musical messages. She looks forward to each one, and wonders who has sent them.**

 **Rome.**

 **Isn't it said that all roads lead to Rome...**


End file.
